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THE RED BLOODED 



Also by Mr. Brorison 



IN CLOSED TERKITORY. Profusely 
illustrated from photographs by the 
author. Crown 8vo, $1.75 net. 

REMINISCENCES OF A RANCHMAN. 

New revised edition, with new matter. 
Profusely illustrated by Dixon, Wyeth, 
Dunton,'etc. Crown 8vo, $1.50 net. 



A. C. McClubg 4 Co., Publishers 
CHICAGO 




Burning brush droi)ped from above failed to lodge before 
the recess'' 



THE 

RED-BLOODED 



BY 

EDGAR BEECHER BRONSON 

Author of " Reminiscences of a Ranchman," 
" In Closed Territory," etc. 



WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1910 



6ei 



Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1910 

Published September 10, 1910 

Elntered at Stationers' Hall, London, England. 



The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the 
editors of periodicals in which some of this material 
has appeared, for permission to wse the same in this 
volume. 



DONNELLEY * SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



IGI,A271570 



CONTENTS 



Chapter 

I Loving's Bend . 



Paqe 



31 

51 

70 

104 

125 



II A Cow-Hunters' Court 

III A Self-Constituted Executioner 

IV Triggerfingeritis 
V A Juggler with Death 

VI An Aerial Bivouac . . 

VII The Evolution of a Train Robber 149 

VIII Circus Day at Mangos . . .171 

IX Across the Border . . • .194 

X The Three-Legged Doe and the Blind 
Buck ...••• 

XI The Lemon County Hunt . 

XII El Tigre 

XIII Bunkered ...••• 

XIV They Who Must Be Obeyed . .316 

XV Djama Aout's Heroism 

XVI A Modern C(eur-de-Lion . 



238 
255 
277 
299 



I 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Page 

"Burning brush dropped from above failed to lodge 

before the recess" .... Frontispiece 

"The loose horses were guarded by the 'horse 

wrangler' by night" ..... 6 

"Loving and Jim were two mere specks in the dis- 
tance, but the savage sleuths made them out 
as horsemen — and white men" . . .14 

"The figure of a prostrate man, apparently dead" . 20 

"Slender, sinewy bronze figures creeping and crouch- 
ing like panthers, crafty as foxes, their presence 
was rarely known until the blow fell" . . 36 

" 'Nless I disremember, thar's some red-eye in this 

yere jug" ..... .42 

"The great loop of your lariat circling and hissing 

about your head " ..... 46 

"into the middle of the road sprang a lithe figure" 74 

" At a sharp bend of the trail they ran into Doc and 

five of his men" ...... 86 

"l climbed half-way up the netting, opened my 
knife with my teeth, and cut a hole about two 
feet long" 110 

Whitehill found a fragment of a Kansas newspaper " 1 62 



ILLUSTRATIONS — C7ow«mwec? 

"Out sprang a dainty figure in tulle and tights, and 

fired at the nearest of the common enemy" . 190 

"The six, all heavily armed, loped past us" . . 232 

"We lay close without returning a single shot" . 234 

"Of a rare type was Sofia in Andalusia" . .278 

Menelek II, Negus Negusti, "King of the Kings 

of Ethiopa, and Conquering Lion of Judah" • 318 

"Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen 

but defiant prisoner" 326 

"Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for 
their fearlessness, the name of Djama Aout is 
held a synonyme for reckless courage" . • 330^ 

" Wfthin the lion's jaws and into his great yawning 
mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and 
forearm" • • ^34^ 



THE RED-BLOODED 



THE RED-BLOODED 



CHAPTER I 
Loving's bend 

FROM San Antonio to Fort Griffin, Joe Lov- 
ing's was a name to conjure with in the middle 
sixties. His tragic story is still told and re- 
told around camp-fires on the Plains. 

One of the thriftiest of the pioneer cow-hunters, he 
was the first to realize that if he would profit by the 
fruits of his labor he must push out to the north in 
search of a market for his cattle. The Indian agencies 
and mining camps of northern New Mexico and Col- 
orado, and the Mormon settlements of Utah, were the 
first markets to attract attention. The problem of 
reaching them seemed almost hopeless of solution. 
Immediately to the north of them the country was 
trackless and practically unknown. The only thing 
certain about it was that it swarmed with hostile 
Indians. What were the conditions as to water and 
grass, two prime essentials to moving herds, no one 
knew. To be sure, the old overland mail road to El 
Paso, Chihuahua, and Los Angeles led out west from 
the head of the Concho to the Pecos ; and once on the 

[3] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Pecos, which they knew had its source indefinitely in 
the north, a practicable route to market should be 
possible. 

But the trouble was to reach the Pecos across the 
ninety intervening miles of waterless plateau called 
the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plain. This plain 
was christened by the early Spanish explorers who, 
looking out across its vast stretches, could note no 
landmark, and left behind them driven stakes to guide 
their return. An elevated tableland averaging about 
one hundred miles wide and extending four hundred 
miles north and south, it presents, approaching any- 
where from the east or the west, an endless line of 
sharply escarped bluffs from one hundred to two hun- 
dred feet high that with their buttresses and re- 
entrant angles look at a distance like the walls of an 
enormous fortified town. And indeed it possesses 
riches well worth fortifying. 

While without a single surface spring or stream 
from Devil's River in the south to Yellow House 
Canon in the north, this great mesa is nevertheless 
the source of the entire stream system of central and 
Bouth Texas. Absorbing thirstily every drop of moist- 
ure that falls upon its surface, from its deep bosom 
pours a vitalizing flood that makes fertile and has 
enriched an empire, — a flood without which Texas, 
now producing one-third of the cotton grown in the 
United States, would be an arid waste. Bountiful to 

[4] 



LOVING'S BEND 

the south and east, it is niggardly elsewhere, and only 
two small springs, Grierson and Mescalero, escape 
from its western escarpment. 

A driven herd normally travels only twelve to sev- 
enteen miles a day, and even less than this in the early 
Spring when herds usually are started. It therefore 
seemed a desperate undertaking to enter upon the 
ninety-mile "dry drive," from the head of the Con- 
cho to the Horsehead Crossing of the Pecos, wherein 
two-thirds of one's cattle were likely to perish for 
want of water. 

Joe Loving was the first man to venture it, and he 
succeeded. He traversed the Plain, fought his way 
up the Pecos, reached a good market, and returned 
home in the Autumn, bringing a load of gold and 
stories of hungry markets in the north that meant 
fortunes for Texas ranchmen. This was in 1866. II 
was the beginning of the great "Texas trail drive," 
which during the next twenty years poured six mil- 
lion cattle into the plains and mountains of the 
Northwest. Of this great industrial movement, Joe 
Loving was the pioneer. 

At this time Fort Sumner, situated on the Pecos 
about four hundred miles above Horsehead Crossing, 
was a large Government post, and the agency of the 
Navajo Indians, or such of them as were not on the 
war-path. Here, on his drive in the Summer of 1867, 
Loving made a contract for the delivery at the post 
[5] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

the ensuing season of two herds of beeves. His part- 
ner in this contract was Charles Goodnight, later for 
many years the proprietor of the Palo Duro ranch 
in the Pan Handle. 

Loving and Goodnight were young then ; they had 
helped to repel many a Comanche assault upon the 
settlements, had participated in many a bloody raid 
of reprisal, had more than once from the slight shel- 
ter of a buffalo-wallow successfully defended their 
lives, and so they entered upon their work with little 
thought of disaster. 

Beginning their round-up early in March as soon 
as green grass began to rise, selecting and cutting out 
cattle of fit age and condition, by the end of the month 
they reached the head of the Concho with two herds, 
each numbering about two thousand head. Loving 
was in charge of one herd and Goodnight of the other. 

Each outfit was composed of eight picked cowboys, 
well drilled in the rude school of the Plains, a "horse 
wrangler," and a cook. To each rider was assigned 
a mount of five horses, and the loose horses were 
driven with the herd by day and guarded by the 
"horse wrangler" by night. The cook drove a team 
of six small Spanish mules hitched to a mess wagon. 
In the wagon were carried provisions, consisting prin- 
cipally of bacon and jerked beef, flour, beans, and 
coffee; the men's blankets and "war sacks," and the 
simple cooking equipment. Beneath the wagon was 
[6] 




The loose horses w 



the ' horse wrangler* 



LOVING'S BEND 

always swung a "rawhide" — a dried, iintanned, un- 
scraped cow's hide, fastened by its four comers be- 
neath the wagon bed. This rawhide served a double 
purpose : first, as a carryall for odds and ends ; and 
second, as furnishing repair material for saddles 
and wagons. In it were carried pots and kettles, ex- 
tra horseshoes, farriers' tools, and firewood ; for often 
long journeys had to be made across country which 
did not furnish enough fuel to boil a pot of coffee. 
On the sides of the wagon, outside the wagon box, 
were securely lashed the two great water barrels, each 
supplied with a spigot, which are indispensable in 
trail driving. Where, as in this instance, excep- 
tionally long dry drives were to be made, other water 
kegs were carried in the wagons. 

Such wagons were rude affairs, great prairie 
schooners, hooded in canvas to keep out the rain. 
Some of them were miracles of patchwork, racked and 
strained and broken till scarcely a sound bit of iron or 
wood remained, but, all splinted and bound with strips 
of the cowboy's indispensable rawhide, they wobbled 
crazily along, with many a shriek and groan, threat- 
ening every moment to collapse, but always holding 
together until some extraordinary accident required 
the application of new rawhide bandages. I have no 
doubt there are wagons of this sort in use in Texas 
to-day that went over the trail in 1868. 

The men need little description, for the cowboy 
in 



THE RED-BLOODED 

type has been made familiar by Buffalo Bill's most 
truthful exhibitions of plains life. Lean, wiry, 
bronzed men, their legs cased in leather chaparejos, 
with small boots, high heels, and great spurs, they 
were, despite their loose, slouchy seat, the best rough- 
riders in the world. 

Cowboy character is not well imderstood. Its most 
distinguishing trait was absolute fidelity. As long as 
he liked you well enough to take your pay and eat 
your grub, you could, except in very rare instances, 
rely implicitly upon his faithfulness and honesty. To 
be sure, if he got the least idea he was being misused 
he might begin throwing lead at you out of the busi- 
ness end of a gun at any time ; but so long as he liked 
you, he was just as ready with his weapons in your 
defence, no matter what the odds or who the enemy. 
Another characteristic trait was his profound respect 
for womanhood. I never heard of a cowboy insulting 
a woman, and I don't believe any real cowboy ever 
did. IVIen whose nightly talk around the camp-fire is 
of home and "mammy" are apt to be a pretty good 
sort. And yet another quality for which he was re- 
markable was his patient, uncomplaining endurance 
of a life of hardship and privation equalled only 
among seafarers. Drenched by rain or bitten by 
snow, scorched by heat or stiffened by cold, he passed 
it all off with a jest. Of a bitterly cold night he 
might casually remark about the quilts that com- 

[8] 



LOVING'S BEND 

posed his bed: "These here dumed huldys ain't 
much thicker 'n hen skin ! " Or of a hot night : 
"Reckon ole mammy must 'a stuffed a hull bale of 
cotton inter this yere ole huldy." Or in a pouring 
rain : " Pears like ole IMahster 's got a dumed fool 
idee we'uns is web-footed." Or in a driving snow 
storm: ''Ef ole Mahster had to git rid o' this yere 
damn cold stuff, he might 'a dumped it on fellers 
what 's got more firewood handy." 

Vices? Well, such as the cowboy had, some one 
who loves him less will have to describe. Perhaps he 
was a bit too frolicsome in town, and too quick to 
settle a trifling dispute with weapons ; but these 
things were inevitable results of the life he led. 

In driving a herd over a known trail where water 
and grass are abundant, an experienced trail boss 
conforms the movement of his herd as near as possi- 
ble to the habit of wild cattle on the range. At dawn 
the herd rises from the bed ground and is "drifted" 
or grazed, without pushing, in the desired direction. 
By nine or ten o'clock they have eaten their fill, and 
then they are "strung out on the trail" to water. 
They step out smartly, two men — one at either side 
— "pointing" the leaders ; and " swing " riders along 
the sides push in the flanks, until the herd is strung 
out for a mile or more, a narrow, bright, particolored 
ribbon of moving color winding over the dark green 
of hill and plain. In this way they easily march off 
[9] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

six to nine miles bj noon. When thej reach water 
they are scattered along the stream, drink their fill 
and lie down. Dinner is then eaten, and the boys not 
on herd doze in the shade of the wagon until, a little 
after two o'clock, the herd rise of their own accord 
and move away, guided by the riders. Rather less 
distance is made in the afternoon. At twilight the 
herd is rounded up into a close circular compact mass 
and "bedded down" for the night, the first relief of 
the night guard riding slowly round, singing softly 
and turning back stragglers. If properly grazed, in 
less than a half-hour the herd is quiet and at rest; 
and, barring an occasional wild or hungry beast try- 
ing to steal away into the darkness, so they lie till 
dawn unless stampeded by some untoward incident. 

Every two or three hours a new "relief" is called 
and the night guard changed. Round and round all 
night ride the guards, jingling their spurs and dron- 
ing some low monotonous song, recounting through 
endless stanzas the fearless deeds of some frontier 
hero, or humming some love ditty rather too passion- 
ate for gentle ears. 

But when a ninety-mile drive across the Staked 
Plain is to be done, all this easy system is changed. 
In order to make the journey at all the pace must be 
forced to the utmost, and the cattle kept on their legs 
and moving as long as they can stand. 

Therefore, when Loving and Goodnight reached 
[10] 



LOVING'S BEND 

the head of the Concho, two full days' rest were taken 
to recuperate the "drags," or weaker cattle. Then, 
late one afternoon, after the herd had been well grazed 
and watered, the water barrels and kegs filled, the 
herd was thrown on the trail and driven away into the 
west, without halt or rest, throughout the night. 
Thus, driving in the cool of the night and of the early 
morning and late evening, resting through the heat 
of midday when travel would be most exhausting, the 
herd was pushed on westward for three nights and 
four days. 

On these dry drives the horses suffer most, for 
every rider is forced, in his necessary daily work, to 
cover many times the distance travelled by the herd, 
and therefore the horses, doing the heaviest work, are 
refreshed by an occasional sip of the precious con- 
tents of the water barrels — as long as it lasts. By 
night of the second day of this drive every drop of 
water is consumed, and thereafter, with tongues 
parched and swollen by the clouds of dust raised by 
the moving multitude, thin, drawn, and famished for 
water, men, horses, and cattle push madly ahead. 

Come at last within fifteen miles of the Pecos, even 
the leaders, the strongest of the herd, are staggering 
along with dull eyes and dropping heads, apparently 
ready to fall in their tracks. Suddenly the whole 
appearance of the cattle changes ; heads are eagerly 
raised, ears pricked up, eyes brighten; the leaders 

[11] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

step briskly forward and break into a trot. Cow- 
hunters say they smell the water. Perhaps they do, 
or perhaps it is the last desperate struggle for exist- 
ence. Anyway, the tide is resistless. Nothing can 
check them, and four men gallop in the lead to control 
and handle them as much as possible when they reach 
the stream. Behind, the weaker cattle follow at the 
best pace they can. In this way over the last stage a 
single herd is strung out over a length of four or five 
miles. 

Great care is needed when the stream is reached to 
turn them in at easy waterings, for in their maddened 
state they would bowl over one another down a bluff 
of any height; and they often do so, for men and 
horses are almost equally wild to reach the water, 
and indifferent how they get there. 

However, the Pecos was reached and the herds 
watered with comparatively small losses, and both 
Loving's and Goodnight's outfits lay at rest for three 
days to recuperate at Horsehead Crossing. Then 
the drive up the wide, level valley of the Pecos was 
begun, through thickets of tornilla and mesquite, 
horses and cattle grazing belly-deep in the tall, juicy 
zacaton. 

The perils of the Llano Estacado were behind 
them, but they were now in the domain of the Co- 
manche and in hourly danger of ambush or open at- 
tack. They found a great deal of Indian "sign," 
[12] 



LOVING'S BEND 

their trails and camps ; but the " sign " was ten days 
or two weeks old, which left ground for hope that the 
war parties might be out on raids in the east or south. 
After travelling four days up the Pecos without en- 
countering any fresh " sign," they concluded that 
the Indians were off on some foray ; therefore it was 
decided that Loving might with reasonable safety 
proceed ahead of the herds to make arrangements at 
Fort Sumner for their delivery, provided he travelled 
only by night, and lay in concealment during the day. 
In Loving's outfit were two brothers, Jim and Bill 
Scott, who had accompanied his two previous Pecos 
drives, and were his most experienced and trusted 
men. He chose Jim Scott for his companion on the 
dash through to Fort Sumner. When dark came, 
Loving mounted a favorite mule, and Jim his best 
horse; then, each well armed with a Henry rifle and 
two six-shooters, with a brief " So long, boys ! " to 
Goodnight and the men, they trotted off up the trail. 
Riding rapidly all night, they hid themselves just 
before dawn in the rough hills below Pope's Crossing, 
ate a snack, and then slept undisturbed till nightfall. 
As soon as it was good dusk they slipped down a ra- 
vine to the river, watered their mounts, and resumed 
the trail to the north. This night also was unevent- 
ful, except that they rode into, and roused, a great 
herd of sleeping buffalo, which ran thundering away 
over the Plain. 

[13] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Dawn came upon them riding through a level coun- 
try about fifteen miles below the present town of 
Carlsbad, without cover of any sort to serve for their 
concealment through the day. They therefore de- 
cided to push on to the hills above the mouth of Dark 
Canon. Here was their mistake. Had they ridden a 
mile or two to the west of the trail and dismounted 
before daylight, they probably would not have been 
discovered. It was madness for two men to travel by 
day in that country, whether fresh sign had been 
seen or not. But, anxious to reach a hiding place 
where both might venture to sleep through the day, 
they pressed on up the trail. And they paid dearly 
the penalty of their foolhardiness. 

Other riders were out that morning, riders with 
eyes keen as a hawk's, eyes that never rested for a mo- 
ment, eyes set in heads cunning as foxes and cruel as 
wolves. A war party of Comanches was out and on 
the move early, and, as is the crafty Indian custom, 
was riding out of sight in the narrow valley below 
the well-rounded hills that lined the river. But while 
hid themselves, their scouts were out far ahead, creep- 
ing along just beneath the edge of the Plain, scanning 
keenly its broad stretches, alert for quarry. And 
they soon found it. 

Loving and Jim hove in sight! 

To be sure they were only two specks in the 

[14] 



LOVING'S BEND 

distance, but the trained eyes of these savage sleuths 
quickly made them out as horsemen, and white men. 

Halting for the main war party to come up, they 
held a brief council of war, which decided that the at- 
tack should be delivered two or three miles farther 
up the river, where the trail swerved in to within a 
few hundred yards of the stream. So the scouts 
mounted, and the war party jogged leisurely north- 
ward and took stand opposite the bend in the trail. 

On came Loving and Jim, unwarned and unsus- 
pecting, their animals jaded from the long night's 
ride. They reached the bend. And just as Jim, 
pointing to a low round hill a quarter of a mile to the 
west of them, remarked, " Thar'd be a blame good 
place to stan' off a bunch o' Injuns," they were 
startled by the sound of thundering hoofs off on 
their right to the east. Looking quickly round they 
saw a sight to make the bravest tremble. 

Racing up out of the valley and out upon them, 
barely four hundred yards away, came a band of 
forty or fifty Comanche warriors, crouching low on 
their horses' withers, madly plying quirt and heel to 
urge their mounts to their utmost speed. 

Their own animals worn out, escape by running 
was hopeless. Cover must be sought where a stand 
could be made, so they whirled about and spurred 
away for the hill Jim had noted. Their pace was 

[15] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

slow at the best. The Indians were gaining at every 
jump and had opened fire, and before half the dis- 
tance to the hill was covered a ball broke Loving's 
thigh and killed his mule. As the mule pitched over 
dead, providentially he fell on the bank of a buffalo- 
wallow — a circular depression in the prairie two or 
three feet deep and eight or ten feet in diameter, 
made by buffalo wallowing in a muddy pool during 
the rains. 

Instantly Jim sprang to the ground, gave his bri- 
dle to Loving, who lay helpless under his horse, and 
turned and poured a stream of lead out of his Henry 
rifle that bowled over two Comanches, knocked down 
on horse, and stopped the charge. 

While the Indians temporarily drew back out of 
range, Jim pulled Loving from beneath his fallen 
mule, and, using his neckerchief, applied a tourni- 
quet to the wounded leg which abated the hemorrhage, 
and then placed him in as easy a position as possible 
within the shelter of the wallow, and behind the fallen 
carcass of the mule. Then Jim led his own horse to 
the opposite bank of the wallow, drew his bowie knife 
and cut the poor beast's throat: they were in for a 
fight to the death, and, outnumbered twenty to one, 
must have breastworks. As the horse fell on the low 
bank and Jim dropped down behind him, Loving 
called out cheerily : 

"Reckon we're all right now, Jim, and can down 
[16] 



LOVING'S BEND 

half o' them before they get us. Hell! Here they 
come again ! " 

A brief " Bet yer life, ole man. We'll make 'em set- 
tle now," was the only reply. 

Stripped naked to their waist-cloths and mocca- 
sins, with faces painted black and bronze, bodies 
striped with vermilion, with curling buffalo horns 
and streaming eagle feathers for their war bonnets, 
no warriors ever presented a more ferocious appear- 
ance than these charging Comanches. Their horses, 
too, were naked except for the bridle and a hair rope 
loosely knotted round the barrel over the withers. 

On they came at top speed until within range, when 
with that wonderful dexterity no other race has quite 
equalled, each pushed his bent right knee into the 
slack of the hair rope, seized bridle and horse's mane 
in the left hand, curled his left heel tightly into the 
horse's flank, and dropped down on the animal's right 
side, leaving only a hand and a foot in view from the 
left. Then, breaking the line of their charge, the 
whole band began to race round Loving's entrench- 
ment in single file, firing beneath their horses' necks 
and gradually drawing nearer as they circled. 

Loving and Jim wasted no lead. Lying low behind 
their breastworks until the enemy were well within 
range, they opened a fire that knocked over six horses 
and wounded three Indians. Balls and arrows were 
flying all about them, but, well sheltered, they re- 
[17] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

mained untouched. The fire was too hot for the Co- 
manches and they again withdrew. 

Twice again during the day the Indians tried the 
same tactics with no better result. Later they tried 
sharpshooting at long range, to which Loving and 
Jim did not even reply. At last, late in the afternoon, 
they resorted to the desperate measure of a direct 
charge, hoping to ride over and shoot down the two 
white men. Up they came at a dead run five or six 
abreast, the front rank firing as they ran. But, badly 
exposed in their own persons, the fire from the buffalo- 
wallow made such havoc in their front ranks that the 
savage column swerved, broke, and retreated. 

Night shut down. Loving and Jim ate the few bis- 
cuits they had baked and some raw bacon. Then they 
counselled with one another. Their thirst was so 
great, it was agreed they must have water at any 
cost. They knew the Indians were unlikely to attempt 
another attack until dawn, and so they decided to at- 
tempt to reach the stream shortly after midnight. 
Although it was scarcely more than fifteen hundred 
yards, that was a terrible journey for Loving. Com- 
pelled to crawl noiselessly to avoid alarming the 
enemy, Jim could give him little assistance. But going 
slowly, dragging his shattered leg behind him without 
a murmur, Loving followed Jim, and they reached the 
river safely and drank. 

It was now necessary to find new cover. For long 
[18] 



LOVING'S BEND 

distances the banks of the Pecos are nearly perpen- 
dicular, and ten to twenty feet high. At flood the 
swift current cuts deep holes and recesses in these 
banks. Prowling along the margin of the stream, 
VTim found one of these recesses wide enough to hold 
them both, and deep enough to afford good defence 
against a fire from the opposite shore. Above them 
the bank rose straight for twenty feet. Thus they 
could not be attacked by firing, except from the other 
side of the river ; and while the stream was only thirty 
yards wide, the opposite bank afforded no shelter for 
the enemy. 

In the gray dawn the Indians crept in on the first 
entrenchment and sprang inside the breastworks with 
upraised weapons, only to find it deserted. However, 
the trail of Loving's dragging leg was plain, and they 
followed it down to the river, where, coming unex- 
pectedly in range of the new defences, two of their 
number were killed outright. 

Throughout the day they exhausted every device 
of their savage cunning to dislodge Loving, but with- 
out avail. They soon found the opposite bank too 
exposed and dangerous for attack from that direc- 
tion. Burning brush dropped from above failed to 
lodge before the recess, as they had hoped it might. 
The position seemed impregnable, so they surrounded 
the spot, resolved to starve the white men out. 

Loving and Jim had leisure to discuss their situa- 
[19] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

tion. Loving was losing strength from his wound. 
They had no food but a httle raw bacon. Without 
relief they must inevitably be starved out. It was 
therefore agreed that Jim should try to reach Good- 
night and bring aid. It was a forlorn hope, but the 
only one. The herds must be at least sixty miles back 
down the trail. Jim was reluctant to leave, but Lov- 
ing urged it as the only chance. 

As soon as it was dark, Jim removed all but his 
underclothing, hung his boots round his neck, slid 
softly into the river, and floated and swam down 
stream for more than a quarter of a mile. Then he 
crept out on the bank. On the way he had lost his 
boots, which more than doubled the difficulty and 
hardship of his journey. Still he struck bravely out 
for the trail, through cactus and over stones. He 
travelled all night, rested a few hours in the morning, 
resumed his tramp in the afternoon, and continued it 
well-nigh through the second night. 

Near morning, famished and weak, with feet raw 
and bleeding, totally unable to go farther, Jim lay 
down in a rocky recess two or three hundred yards 
from the trail, and went to sleep. 

It chanced that the two outfits lay camped scarcely 
a mile farther down the trail. At dawn they were 
again en route, and both passed Jim without rousing 
or discovering him. Then a strange thing happened. 

[20] 













v,a'/ii 



The figure of" a ijrostrate man, apparently dead" 



LOVING'S BEND 

Three or four horses had strayed away from the 
" horse wrangler " during the night, and Jim's brother 
Bill was left behind to hunt them. Circling for their 
trail, he found and followed it, followed it until it 
brought him almost upon the figure of a prostrate 
man, nearly naked, bleeding, and apparently dead. 
Dismounting and turning the body over, Bill was 
startled to find it to be his brother Jim. With great 
difficulty Jim was roused; he was then helped to 
mount Bill's horse, and hurried on to overtake the 
outfit. Coffee and a little food revived him so that 
he could tell his storj"^ 

Neither danger nor property was considered where 
help was needed, in those days. Goodnight instantly 
ordered six men to shift saddles to their strongest 
horses, left the outfits to get on as best they might, 
and spurred away with his little band to his partner's 
relief. 

Loving had a close call the day after 'Jim left. The 
Comanches had other plans to carry out, or perhaps 
they were grown impatient. In any event, they 
crossed the river and raced up and down the bluff, 
firing beneath their horses' necks. It was a miracle 
Loving was not hit ; but, lying low and watching his 
chance, he returned such a destructive fire that the 
Comanches were forced to draw off. The afternoon 
passed without alarm. As a matter of fact, the re- 

[21] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

maining Comanches had given up the siege as too dear 
a bargain, and had struck off southwest toward 
Guadalupe Peak. 

When night came, Loving gi'ew alarmed over his 
situation. Jim might be taken and killed. Then no 
chance would remain for him where he lay. He must 
escape through the Indians and try to reach the trail 
at the crossing in the big bend four miles north. Here 
his own outfits might reach him in time. Therefore, 
he started early in the night, dragged himself pain- 
fully up the bluif, and reached the plain. He might 
have lain down by the trail near by ; but supposing 
the Comanches still about, he set himself the task of 
reaching the big bend. 

Starving, weak from loss of blood, his shattered 
thigh compelling him to crawl, words cannot describe 
the horror of this journey. But he succeeded. Love 
of life carried him through. And so, late the next 
afternoon, the afternoon of the day Goodnight started 
to his relief, Loving reached the crossing, lay down 
beneath a mesquite bush near the trail, and fell into 
a swoon. Ever since, this spot has been known as 
Loving's Bend. It is half a mile below the present 
town of Carlsbad. 

At dusk of the evening on which Loving reached 
the ford, a large party of Mexican freighters, trav- 
elling south from Fort Sumner to Fort Stockton, ar- 
rived and pitched their camp near where he lay. But 
[22] 



LOVING'S BEND 

Loving did not hear them. He was far into the dark 
valley and within the very shadow of Death. Help 
must come to him; he could not go to it. Luckily it 
came. 

While some were unharnessing the teams, others 
went out to fetch firewood. In the darkness one Mex- 
ican, thinking he saw a big mesquite root, seized it 
and gave a tug. It was Loving's leg. Startled and 
frightened, the Mexican yelled to his mates : 

" Que vienen, hombres! Que vienen por el amor de 
Dios! Aqui esta un muerto. " 

Others came quickly, but it was not a dead man 
they found, as their mate had called. Dragged from 
under the mesquite and carried to the fire. Loving 
was found still breathing. The spark of life was very 
low, however, and the mescal given him as a stimulant 
did not serve to rouse him from his stupor. But the 
next morning, rested somewhat from his terrible hard- 
ships and strengthened by more mescal, he was able 
to take some food and tell his story. The Mexicans 
bathed and dressed his wound as well as they could, 
and promised to remain in camp until his friends 
should come up. 

Before noon Goodnight and his six men galloped 
in. They had reached his entrenchment that morn- 
ing, guided by the Indian sign round about it, and 
had discovered and followed his trail. Goodnight 
hired a party of the Mexicans to take one of 
[23] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

their carretas ami convey Loving tlirougli to Fort 
Sunnier. With the Fort still more than two hundred 
miles away, there was small liope lie could survive the 
journey, but it must be tried. A rude hammock was 
improvised and slung beneath the canvas cover of the 
carreta, and, placed within it. Loving was made as 
comfortable as possible. After a nine days' forced 
march, made chiefly by night, the Mexicans brought 
their crazy old carreta safely into the post. 

While with rest and food Loving had been gaining 
in strength, the heat and the lack of proper care were 
telling badly on his wound. Goodnight had returned 
to the outfits, and, after sta^'ing with tliem a week, 
he had brought tliem through as far as the Rio 
Penasco without further mishap. Then placing the 
two herds in charge of the Scott brothers, he himself 
made a forced ride that brought him into Sumner 
only one day behind Loving. 

Goodnight found his partner's condition critical. 
Gangrene had attacked the wound. It was apparent 
that nothing but amputation of the wounded leg could 
save him. The medical officer of the post was out 
with a scouting cavalry detail, and only a hospital 
steward was available for the operation. To trust the 
case to this man's inexperience seemed murder. 
Therefore, Goodnight decided to send a rider through 
to Las Vegas, the nearest point where a surgeon could 
be obtained. 

r '^n ] 



LOVING'S BEND 

Here arose what seemed insuperable difficulties. 
From Fort Sumner to Las Vegas the distance is one 
hundred and thirty miles. ]\Iuch travelled by freight 
teams carrying government supplies, the road was 
infested throughout with hostile Navajos, for whom 
the freight trains were the richest spoils they could 
have. Offer what he would, Goodnight could find no 
one at the Fort bold enough to ride through alone 
and fetch a surgeon. He finally raised his offer to 
a thousand dollars for any one who would make the 
trip. It was a great prize, but the danger was 
greater than the prize. No one responded. To go him- 
self was impossible ; their contract must be fulfilled. 

At this juncture a hero appeared. His name was 
Scot Moore. Moore was the contractor then furnish- 
ing wood and hay to the post. Coming in from one of 
his camps and learning of the dilemma, himself a 
friend of Loving, he instantly went to Goodnight. 

"Charlie," he said, "Why in the world did you 
not send for me before.'* Joe shall not die here like a 
dog if I can save him. I've got a young Kentucky 
saddle mare here that's the fastest thing on the Pecos. 
I'll be in Vegas by sun-up to-morrow morning, and 
I'll be back here sometime to-morrow night with a 
doctor, if the Navajos don't get us. Pay.'' Pay be 
damned. I'm doing it for old Joe ; he'd go for me in 
a minute. If I'm not back by nine o'clock to-morrow 

[25] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

night, Charlie, send another messenger and just tell 
old Joe that Scot did his best." 

" It's mighty good of you, Scot," replied Good- 
night, " I never will forget it, nor will Joe. You know 
I'd go myself if I could." 

"That's all right, pardner," said Scot, "Just 
come over to my camp a spell and look over some 
papers I want you to attend to if I don't show up." 

And they strolled away. Officers and other by- 
standers shook their heads sadly. 

" Devilish pity old Scot had to come in." 

*' Might 'a known nobody could hold him from go- 
in'." 

*' He'll make Vegas all right in a night run if the 
mare don't give out, but God help him when he starts 
back with the doctor in a wagon ; ain't one chance in 
a thousand he'll get through." 

" Well, if any man on earth can make it, bet your 
alee Scot will." 

These were some of the comments. Scot Moore 
was known and loved from Chihuahua to Fort Lyon. 
One of the biggest-hearted, most amiable and gener- 
ous of men, he was known as the coolest and most 
utterly fearless in a country where few men were 
cowards. 

At nightfall, the mare well fed and groomed and 
lightly saddled, Scot mounted, bearing no arms but 
his two pistols, called a careless " Hasta luego, ami 
[26] 



LOVING'S BEND 

gos " to his friends, and trotted off up the road. For 
two hours he jogged along easily over the sandy 
stretches beyond the Bosque Redondo. Then getting 
out on firmer ground, the mare well warmed, he gave 
her the rein and let her out into a long, low, easy lope 
that scored the miles off famously. And so he swept 
on throughout the night, with only brief halts to cool 
the mare and give her a mouthful of water, through 
Puerta de Luna, past the Canon Pintado, up the Rio 
Gallinas, past sleeping freighters' camps and Mex- 
ican placitas. Twice he was fired upon by alarmed 
campers who mistook him for a savage marauder, but 
luckily the shots flew wild. 

The last ten miles the noble mare nearly gave out, 
but, a friend's life the stake he was riding for, Scot's 
quirt and spurs lifted her through. 

Half an hour after sunrise, before many in the 
town were out of bed, Scot rode into the plaza of Las 
Vegas and turned out the doctor, whom he knew. 

Dr. D was no coward by any means, but it 

took all Scot's eloquence and persuasiveness to induce 
him to consent to hazard a daylight journey through 
to Sumner, for he well knew its dangers. Scarcely a 
week passed without news of some fearful massacre 
or desperate defence. But, stirred by Scot's own 
heroism or perhaps tempted by the heavy fee to be 
earned, he consented. 

Having breakfasted and gotten the best team in 
[27] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

town hitched to a hght buckboard, Scot and the doc- 
tor were rolling away into the south on the Sumner 
trail before seven o'clock, over long stretches of level 
grassy mesa and past tall black volcanic buttes. 

Driving on without interruption or incident, 
shortly after noon they approached the head of the 
Arroyo de los Enteros, down which the trail de- 
scended to the lower levels of the great Pecos Valley. 
Enteros Canon is about three miles long, rarely more 
than two hundred yards wide, its sides rocky, precip- 
itous, and heavily timbered, through which wound the 
wagon trail, exposed at every point to a perfect am- 
buscade. It was the most dreaded stretch of the 
Vegas-Sumner road, but Scot and the doctor drew 
near it without a misgiving, for no sign of the savage 
enemy had they seen. 

Just before reaching the head of the canon, the 
road wound round a high butte. Bowling rapidly 
along, Scot half dozing with fatigue, the doctor, un- 
used to the plains, alert and watchful, they suddenly 
turned the hill and came out upon the immediate head 
of the canon, when suddenly the doctor cried, seizing 
Scot's arm: 

"Good God, Scot, look! For God's sake, look!" 

And it was time. There on either hand, to their 
right and to their left, tied by their lariats to droop- 
ing pi/7ow bough, stood fifty or sixty Navajo ponies. 
The ponies were bridled and saddled. Upon some %vcre 
[28] 



LOVING'S BEND 

tied lances and on others arms. All were dripping 
with sweat and heaving of flank, their knife-marked 
ears drooping with fatigue; not more than five min- 
utes could have elapsed since their murderous riders 
had left them. Apparently it was an ambush laid 
for them, and they were already surrounded. Even 
the cool Scot shook himself in surprise to find that 
he was still alive. 

Overcome with terror, the doctor cried: "Turn, 
Scot ! Turn, for Heaven's sake ! It 's our only chance 
to pull for Vegas." 

But Scot had been reflecting. With wits sharpened 
by a thousand perils and trained in scores of desper- 
ate encounters, he answered: "Doc, you're wrong; 
dead wrong. We're safe as if we were in Fort Union. 
If they were laying for us we'd be dead now. No, 
they are after bigger game. They have sighted a big 
freight outfit coming up from the Pecos, and are lay- 
ing for that in the caiion. We can slide through 
without seeing a buck or hearing a shot. We'll go 
right on down Enteros, old boy." 

" Scot, you're crazy," said the doctor. ** I will 
not go a step. Let's run for Vegas. Any instant we 
may be attacked. Why, damn your fool soul, they've 
no doubt got a bead on us this minute." 

With a sharp stroke of his whip, Scot started the 
team into a smart trot down into the caiion. Then 
he turned to the doctor and quietly answered : " Doc, 
[29] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

you seem to forget that Joe Loving is dying, and that 
I promised to fetch you. Reckon you'll have to go ! '* 
And down they went into what seemed the very jaws 
of death. 

But Scot was right. It was a triumph of logic. 
The Navajos were indeed lying for bigger game. 

And so it happened that, come safely through the 
canon, out two miles on the plain they met a train of 
eight freight teams travelling toward Vegas. They 
stopped and gave the freighters warning, told what 
they had seen, begged them to halt and corral their 
wagons. But it was no use. The freighters thought 
themselves strong enough to repel any attack, and 
drove on into the caiion. 

None of them came out. 

And to this day the traveller through Enteros may 
see pathetic evidence of their foolhardiness in a scat- 
tered lot of weather-worn and rusted wheel tires and 
hub bands. 

Before midnight Scot and the doctor reached Sum- 
ner, having changed teams twice at Mexican placitas. 
Covering two hundred and sixty miles in less than 
thirty hours, Scot Moore had kept his word ! Unhap- 
pily, however, Joe Loving had become so weak that 
he died under the shock of the operation. 

Now Scot Moore himself is dead and gone, but the 
memory of his heroic ride should live as long as noble 
deeds are sung, 

[30] 



CHAPTER II 

A COW-HUNTEES' COURT 

THE recent death of Shanghai Rhett, at Llano, 
Texas, makes another hole in the rapidly 
thinning ranks of the pioneer Texas cow- 
hunters. Cow-hunting in early days was the industry 
upon which many of the greatest fortunes of the State 
were founded, and from it sprang the great cattle- 
ranch industry that between the years 1866 and 1885 
converted into gold the ricli wild grasses of the ten- 
antless plains and mountains of Texas, New Mexico, 
the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, 
Wyoming, Dakota, and Montana. 

The economic value of this great industrial move- 
ment in promoting the settlement and development of 
that vast region of the West lying between the ninety- 
eighth and one hundred and twentieth meridians, and 
embracing half the total area of the United States, is 
comprehended by few who were not personally famil- 
iar with the conditions of its rise and progress. There 
can be no question that the ranch industry hastened 
the occupation and settlement of the Plains by at 
least thirty years. Farming in those wilds was then 
an impossibility. Remote from railways, unmapped, 
[31] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

and untrod by white men, it was under the sway of 
hostile Indians, before whose attacks isolated farming 
settlements, with houses widely scattered, would have 
been defenceless, — alike in their position and in their 
inexperience in Indian warfare. Then, moreover, 
there was neither a market nor means of transporta- 
tion for tlie farmer's product. All these conditions 
the Texas cow-hunters changed, and they did it in 
little more than a decade. 

In Texas were bred the leaders and the rank and 
file of that great army of cow-hunters whose destiny 
it was to become the pioneers of this vast region. Pis- 
tol and knife were the treasured toys of their child- 
hood ; they were inured to danger and to hardship ; 
they were expert horsemen, trained Indian-fighters, 
reckless of life but cool in its defence ; and thus they 
were an ideal class for the pacification of the Plains. 

Shanghai Rhett's death removed one of the com- 
paratively few survivors of this most interesting and 
eventful past. 

In Texas after the war, when Shang was young, a 
pony, a lariat, a six-shooter, and a branding iron 
were sufficient instruments for the acquisition of 
wealth. A trained eye and a practised hand were nec- 
essary for the effective use of pistol and lariat ; the 
running iron anybody could wield; therefore, while 
a necessary feature of equipment, the iron was a sec- 
ondary affair. The pistol was useful in settling an- 
[32] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

noying questions of title ; the horse and the lariat, in 
taking possession after title was settled ; the iron, in 
marking the property with a symbol of ownership. 
The property in question was always cattle. 

Before the war, cattle were abundant in Texas. 
Fences were few. Therefore, the cattle roamed at will 
over hill and plain. To determine ownership each 
owner adopted a distinctive " mark and brand." The 
owner's mark and brand were put upon the young be- 
fore they left their mothers, and upon grown cattle 
when purchases were made. Thus the broad sides and 
quarters of those that changed hands many times were 
covered over with this barbarous record of their 
various transfers. 

The system of marking and branding had its origin 
among the Mexicans. Marking consists in cutting the 
ears or some part of the animal's hide in such a way 
as to leave a permanent distinguishing mark. One 
owner would adopt the " swallow fork," a V-shaped 
piece cut out of the tip of the ear ; another, the 
" crop," the tip of the ear cut squarely off ; another, 
the " under-half crop," the under half of the tip of 
the ear cut away ; another, the " over-half crop," the 
reverse of the last ; another, the " under-bit," a round 
nick cut in the lower edge of the ear; another, the 
"over-bit," the reverse of the last; another, the "un- 
der-slope," the under half of the ear removed by cut- 
ting diagonally upward ; another, the " over-slope," 
[33] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

the reverse of the last ; another, the " grub," the eat 
cut off close to the head; another, the "wattle," a 
strip of the hide an inch wide and two or three inches 
long, either on forehead, shoulder, or quarters, 
skinned and left hanging by one end, where before 
healing it leaves a conspicuous lump; another, the 
" dewlap," three or four inches of the loose skin un- 
der the throat skinned down and left hanging. 

Branding consists in applying a red-hot iron to any 
part of the animal for six or eight seconds, until the 
hide is seared. Properly done, hair never again 
grows on the seared surface and the animal is 
"branded for life." A small five-inch brand on a 
young calf becomes a great twelve-to-eighteen-inch 
mark by the time the beast is fully grown. 

In Mexico the art of branding dates back to the 
time when few men were lettered and most men used a 
rubrica mark or flourish instead of a written signa- 
ture. Thus, in Mexico the brand is always a device, 
whatever complex combination of lines and circles the 
whim of the owner may conceive. In this country the 
brand was usually a combination of letters or numer- 
als, though sometimes shapes and forms are repre- 
sented. Branding and marking cattle and horses is 
certainly a most cruel practice, but under the old 
conditions of the open range, where individual owner- 
ships numbered thousands of head, no other means 
existed of contradistinguishing title. 
[34] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

During the war these vast herds grew and in- 
creased unattended, neglected by owners, who were in 
the field with the armies of the Confederacy. So it 
happened that hundreds of thousands of cattle 
ranged the plains of Texas after the war, unmarked 
and unbranded, wild as the native game, to which no 
man could establish title. This situation afforded an 
opportunity which the hard-riding and desperate men 
who found themselves stranded on this far frontier 
after the wreck of the Confederacy were quick to 
seize. Shang Rhett was one of them. From chasing 
Federal soldiers they turned to chasing unbranded 
steers, and found the latter occupation no less excit- 
ing and much more profitable than the former. 

First, bands of free companions rode together and 
pooled their gains. Then the thrift of some and the 
improvidence of others set in motion the immutable 
laws of distribution. Soon a class of rich and power- 
ful individual owners was created, who employed 
great outfits of ten to fifty men each, splendidly 
mounted and armed. These outfits were in continually 
moving camps, and travelled light, without wagons or 
tents. The climate being mild even in winter, seldom 
more than two blankets to the man were carried for 
bedding. The cooking paraphernalia were equally 
simple, at the most consisting of a coifee pot, a 
frying-pan, a stew kettle, and a Dutch oven. Each 
man carried a tin cup tied to his saddle. Plates, 
[35] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

knives, and forks were considered unnecessary luxu- 
ries, as every man wore a bowie knife at his belt, and 
was dexterous in using his slice of bread as a plate to 
hold whatever delicacy the frying-pan or kettle might 
contain. Sometimes even the Dutch oven was dis- 
pensed with, and bread was baked by winding thin 
rolls of dough round a stick and planting the stick 
in the ground, inclined over a bed of live coals. Often 
the frying-pan was left behind, and the meat roasted 
on a stick over the fire ; and no meat in the world was 
ever so delicious as a good fat side of ribs so roasted. 

The wild, unbranded cattle were everywhere — in 
the cross-timbers of the Palo Pinto, in the hills and 
among the post oaks of the Concho and the Llano, 
on the broad savannas of the Lower Guadalupe and 
the Brazos, in the plains and mesquite thickets of the 
Nueces and the Frio. And through these wild regions, 
on the outer fringe of settlement, ranged the cow- 
hunters, as merry and happy a lot as ever courted 
adventure, careless of their lives. 

Of adventure and hazard the cow-hunters had quite 
enough to keep the blood tingling. They had to deal 
with wild men as well as wild cattle. Comanches and 
Kiowas, the old lords of the manor, were bitterly dis- 
puting every forward movement of the settler along 
the whole frontier. No community, from Griffin to 
San Antonio, escaped their attacks and depredations. 

[36] 



s 



S 2 
a 



d 1^ 

a ~ 

EI '^ 

c — 




A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

Indeed, these incursions were regular monthly visita- 
tions, made always " in the light of the moon." A 
war party of naked bucks on naked horses, the light- 
est and most dexterous cavalry in the world, would 
slip softly near some isolated ranch or lonely camp by 
night. The cleverest and cunningest would dismount 
and steal swiftly in upon their quarry. Slender, sin- 
ewy, bronze figures creeping and crouching like 
panthers, crafty as foxes, fierce and merciless as 
maddened bulls, their presence was rarely known until 
the blow fell. Sometimes they were content to steal 
the settlers' horses, and by daylight be many miles 
away to tlie west or north. Sometimes they fired 
buildings and shot down the inmates as they ran out. 
Sometimes they crept silently into camps, knifed or 
tomahawked one or more of the sleepers, and stole 
away, all so noiselessly that others sleeping near were 
undisturbed. Sometimes they lay in ambush about a 
camp till dawn, and then with mad war-whoops 
charged among the sleepers with their deadly arrows 
and tomahawks. 

Against these wily marauders the cow-hunters 
could never abate their guard. And it was these same 
cow-hunters the Indians most dreaded, for they were 
tireless on a trial and utterly reckless in attack. It 
was not often the Indians got the best of them, and 
then only by ambush or overwhelming numbers. Bet- 

[37] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ter armed, of stouter hearts in a stand-up fight, little 
bands of these cow-hunters often soundly thrashed 
war parties outnumbering them ten to one. 

Then it not infrequently fell out that collisions oc- 
curred between rival outfits of cow-hunters, disputes 
over territory or cattle, which led to bitter feuds 
not settled till one side or the other was killed 
off or run out of the country. Battles royal were 
fought more than once in which a score or more of 
men were killed, wherein the casus belli was a differ- 
ence as to the ownership of a brindle steer. 

These men were a law unto themselves. Courts 
were few and far between on the line of the outer set- 
tlements. Powder and lead came cheaper than at- 
torneys' fees, and were, moreover, found to be more 
effective. Thus the rifle and pistol were almost invari- 
bly the cow-hunters' court of first and last resort for 
disputes of every nature. Except in rare instances 
where there happened to be survivors among the fam- 
ilies of the original plaintiff and defendant, this form 
of litigation was never prolonged or tiresome. When 
there were any survivors the case was sure to be re- 
argued. 

Occasionally, of course, in the immediate settle- 
ments a case would be brought to formal trial before 
a judge and jury. While, as a rule, the procedure 
of these courts conformed to the statutes and was foi^ 
raal enough, rather startling informalities sometimes 
[38] 



A COW-HUXTERS' COURT 

characterized their sessions. A case in point, of 
which Shang Rhett was the hero, occurred at Llano. 

At that time the town of Llano could boast of only 
one building, a big rough stone house, loop-holed for 
defence against the Indians. Under this one roof the 
enterprising owner assembled a variety of industries 
and performed a variety of functions that would dis- 
may the most versatile man of any older community. 
Here he kept a general store, operated blacksmith 
and wheelwright shops, served as post-master, ran a 
hotel, and sat as justice of the peace. Indeed, he got 
so much in the habit of self-reliance in all emergen- 
cies, that in more than one instance he subjected him- 
self to some criticism by calmly sitting as both judge 
and jury in cases wherein he had no jurisdiction. Get- 
ting a jury at Llano was no easy task. Often the 
country for miles around might be scoured without 
producing a full panel. 

Llano being the county seat, and this the only house 
in town, it somewhat naturally from time to time en- 
joyed temporary distinction as a court house, when 
at long intervals the Llano County court met. The 
acconmiodations, however, were inconveniently lim- 
ited — so limited in fact that on one occasion at least 
they were responsible for a sad miscarriage of justice. 

A murder trial was on. One of the earliest settlers, 
a man well known and generally liked, had killed a 
newcomer. It was felt that he had given his victim no 
[39] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

chance for his life, else he probably would not have 
been brought to trial at all. And even in spite of the 
prevailing disapproval, there was an undercurrent 
of sympathy for him in the community. 

However, court met and the case was called. Sev- 
eral settlers were witnesses in the case. It was, there- 
fore, considered a remarkable and encouraging evi- 
dence of Llano County's growth in population when 
the District Attorney succeeded in raking together 
enough men for a jury. At noon of the second day 
of the trial the evidence was all in, arguments of coun- 
sel finished, and the case given to the jury. The pris- 
oner's case seemed hopeless. A clearly premeditated 
murder had been proved, against which scarcely any 
defence was produced. 

Judge, jury, prisoner, and witnesses all had din- 
ner together in the "court room," which was always 
demeaned from its temporary dignity as a hall of jus- 
tice, to the humble rank of a dining-room as soon as 
court adjourned. Directly after dinner the jury 
withdrew for deliberation, in custody of two bailiffs. 

The house was large, to be sure, but its capacity 
was already so far taxed that it could not provide a 
jury room. It was therefore the custom of the bail- 
iffs to use as a jury room an open, mossy glade 
shaded by a great live oak tree on the farther bank 
of the Llano, and distant two or three hundred yards 
from the court house. Here, therefore, the jury were 
[40] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

conducted, the bailiffs retired to some distance, and 
discussion of a verdict was begun. In spite of the 
weight of evidence against him, two or three were for 
acquittal. The others said they were "damned sorry ; 
Jim was a mighty good feller, but it 'peared like 
they'd have to foller the evidence." So the discussion 
pro and con ran on into the mid-afternoon without 
result. 

It was an intensely hot afternoon, the air close and 
heavy with humidity, an hour when all Texans who 
can do so take a siesta. Judge and counsel were 
snoozing peacefully on the gallery of the distant 
court house, and the two bailiffs guarding the "jury 
room," overcome by habit and the heat, were 
stretched at full length on the ground, snoring in con- 
cert. This situation made the opportunity for a 
friend at court. Shang Rhett was the friend await- 
ing this opportunity. Stepping lightly out of the 
brush where he had been concealed, a few paces 
brought him among the jurors. 

"Howdy! boys.''" Shang drawled. "Pow'ful hot 
evenin', ain't it.'' Moseyin' roun' sort o' lonesome 
like, I thought mebbe so you fellers 'd be tired o' 
talkin' law, an' I'd jes' step over an' pass the time o' 
day an' give you a rest." 

A rude diplomat, perhaps, Shang was nevertheless 
a cunning one. Several jurors expressed their appre- 
ciation of his sympathy and one answered : " Tired 
[41] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an* 
dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. 
My ol' tongue 's been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 
'nother flop left in her 'nless I could git to ile her up 
with a swaller o' red-eye, an' — " regretfully — "I 
reckon thar ain't no sort o' chanst o' that." 

" Thar ain't, hey .'' " replied Shang, producing a 
big jug from the brush near by. ** 'Pears like, 'nless 
I disremember, thar's some red-eye in this yere jug." 

Upon examination the jug was found to be nearly 
full; but, passed and repassed around the "jury 
room," it was not long before the jug was empty, and 
the jury full. 

Shrewdly seizing the proper moment before the 
jurors got drunk enough to be obstinate and combat- 
ive, Shang made his appeal. " Fellers," he said, " I 
allows you all knows that Jim's my friend, an' I 
reckon you cain't say but what he 's been a mighty 
good friend to more'n one o' you. Course, I know 
he got terrible out o' luck when he had t' kill this yer 
Arkinsaw feller. But then, boys, Arkinsawyers don't 
count fer much nohow, do they.? Powful onery, no 
account lot, sca'cely fit to practise shootin' at. We 
fellers ain't a-goin' to lay that up agin Jim, air we? 
We ain't a-goin' to help this yer jack-leg prosecutin' 
attorney send ol' Jim up. Why, fellers, we knows 
well enough that airy one o' us might 'a done 
the same thing ef we'd been out o' luck, like Jim was, 
[42] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

in meetin' up with this yer Arkinsawver afore we'd 
had our momin' coffee. What say, boys? Bein' as 
how any o' us might be in Jim's boots mos' any day, 
reckon we'll have to turn him loose?" 

Shangs pathetic appeal for Jim's hfe clearly won 
outright more than half the jury, but there were sev- 
eral who, while their sympathies were with Jim, 
" 'lowed they'd have to bring a verdic' accordin' to 
the evidence." 

"Verdic'? Why, fellers," retorted Jim's advocate, 
"whar 's the use of a fool verdic' ? 'Sposin' we fel- 
lers was goin' to be verdicked? This is a time for us 
fellers to stan' together, shua'. I'll tell you what le's 
do ; le's all slip off inter th' brush, cotch our bosses 
an' pull our freight fer home. This yer court ain't 
goin' to git airy jury but us in Llano 'till a new one's 
growed, an' if we skip I reckon they'll have to turn 
Jim loose." 

This alternative met all objections. In a moment 
the "jury room" was empty. 

Shortly thereafter the two bailiffs, awakened by a 
clatter of hoofs over the rocky hills behind them, were 
doubly shocked to find the only tenant of the "jury 
room" an empty jug. 

One of the bailiffs sighted some of the escaping ju- 
rors and opened fire ; the other hastened to alarm the 
court. The latter, running toward the house, met 
the judge and counsel who had been roused by the 
[43] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

firing, and yelled out: "Jedge, the hull jury 's stam- 
peded! Bill's winged two o' them. Gi' me a fast 
hoss an' a lariat an' mebbe so I '11 cotch some 
more." 

Two or three jurors who were too much fuddled 
with drink to saddle and mount were quickly cap- 
tured. The rest escaped. Of course, the court was 
outraged and indignant, but it was powerless. So 
Jim was released, thanks to Shang's diplomacy and 
eloquence. And, by the way, in the dark days that 
came to ranchmen in 1885, Jim, risen to be a well- 
known and powerful banker in City, furnished 

the ready money necessary to save Shang's imperilled 
fortune ; and when at length he heard that Shang was 
at death's door, Jim found the time to leave his large 

affairs and come all the way up from to Llano 

to bid his old friend farewell. 

For two or three years after the war the cow- 
hunters were busy accumulating cattle. From Palo 
Pinto to San Diego great outfits were working inces- 
santly, scouring the wilds for unbranded cattle. 

Directly an animal was sighted, one or two of these 
mad riders would spur m pursuit, rope him by horns 
or legs, and throw him to the ground. Then dismount- 
ing and springing nimbly upon the prostrate beast, 
they quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hog- 
tie" hitch so that he could not rise, a fire was built, 
the short saddle iron heated, and the beast branded. 
[44] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

The feet were then unbound and the cow-hunter made 
a flying leap into his saddle, and spurred away to es- 
cape the infuriated charge sure to be delivered by his 
maddened victim. 

In this work horses were often fatally gored and 
not a few men lost their lives. Notwithstanding the 
fact that it was such a downright desperate task, the 
men became so expert that they did not even hesitate 
to tackle, alone and single-handed, great bulls of 
twice the weight of their small ponies ; they roped, 
held, threw, and branded them. The least accident 
or mistake, a slip of the foot, a stumble by one's 
horse, a breaking cinch, a failure to maintain full ten- 
sion on the lariat, slowness in dismounting to tie an 
animal or in mounting after it was untied — any one 
of these things happening meant death, unless the 
cow-hunter could save himself with a quick and ac- 
curate shot. Indeed the boys so loved this work and 
were so proud of their skill, that when an unusually 
vicious old " moss-back " was encountered, each strove 
to be the first to catch and master him. And God 
knows they should have loved it, as must any man 
with real red blood coursing through his veins, for it 
was not work ; I libel it to call it work ; it was rather 
sport, and the most glorious sport in the world. Rid- 
ing to hounds over the stiffest country, or hunting 
grizzly in juniper thickets, is tame beside cow-hunt- 
ing in the old days. 

[45] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

The happiest period of my life was my first five 
years on the range in the early seventies. Indeed it 
was a period so happy that memory plays me a 
shabby trick to recall its incidents and fire me with 
longings for pleasures I may never again experience. 
Its scenes are all before me now, vivid as if of yes- 
terday. 

The night camp is made beside a singing stream or 
a bubbling spring; the night horses are caught and 
staked; there is a roaring, merry fire of fragrant ce- 
dar boughs ; a side of fat ribs is roasting on a spit 
before the fire, its sweet juices hissing as they drop 
into the flames, and sending off odors to drive one 
ravenous ; the rich amber contents of the coffee pot 
is so full of life and strength that it is well-nigh 
bursting the lid with joy over the vitality and stim- 
ulus it is to bring you. Supper eaten, there follow 
pipe and cigarette, jest and badinage over the day's 
events ; stories and songs of love, of home, of mother ; 
and rude impromptu epics relating the story of vic- 
tories over vicious horses, wild beasts, or savage In- 
dians. When the fire has burnt low and become a 
mass of glowing coals, voices are hushed, the camp is 
still, and each, half hypnotized by gazing into the 
weirdly shifting lights of the dying embers, is 
wrapped in introspection. Then, rousing, you lie 
down, your canopy the dark blue vault of the heav- 
ens, your mattress the soft, curling buffalo grass. 
[46] 



■ip^ 













vi^^ 



JtL "s 



The great l();)p of yoir lariat circling and hissing about your head 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

After a night of deep refreshing sleep you spring at 
dawn with every faculty renewed and tense. Break- 
fast eaten, you catch a favorite roping-horse, 
square and heavy of shoulder and quarter, short of 
back, with wide nervous nostrils, flashing eyes, ears 
pointing to the slightest sound, pasterns supple and 
strong as steel, and of a nerve and temper always re- 
minding you that you are his master only by suffer- 
ance. Now begins the day's hunt. Riding softly 
through cedar brake or mesquite thicket, slipping 
quickly from one live oak to another, you come upon 
your quarry, some great tawny yellow monster with 
sharp-pointed, wide-spreading horns, standing start- 
led and rigid, gazing at you with eyes wide with cu- 
riosity, uncertain whether to attack or fly. Usually 
he at first turns and runs, and you dash after him 
through timber or over plain, the great loop of your 
lariat circling and hissing about your head, the noble 
horse between your knees straining every muscle in 
pursuit, until, come to fit distance, the loop is cast. 
It settles and tightens round the monster's horns, and 
your horse stops and braces himself to the shock that 
may either throw the quarry or cast horse and rider 
to the ground, helpless, at his mercy. Once he is 
caught, woe to you if you cannot master and tie him, 
for a struggle is on, a struggle of dexterity and intel- 
ligence against brute strength and fierce temper, that 
cannot end till beast or man is vanquished! 

[4~] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Thus were the great herds accumulated in Texas 
after the war. But cattle were so abundant that their 
local value was trifling. Markets had to be sought. 
The only outlets were the mining camps and Indian 
agencies of the Northwest, and the railway construc- 
tion camps then pushing west from the Missouri 
River. So the Texans gathered their cattle into 
herds of two thousand to three thousand head each, 
and struck north across the trackless Plains. Indeed 
this movement reached such proportions that, except- 
ing in a few narrow mining belts, there is scarcely one 
of the greater cities and towns between the ninety- 
eighth and one hundred and twentieth meridians 
which did not have its origin as a supply point for 
these nomads. Figures will emphasize the magnitude 
of the movement. The cattle-drive northward from 
Texas between the years 1866 and 1885 was approxi- 
mately as follows : 

1866 260,000 1877 201,000 

1867 35,000 ■' 1878 265,649 

1868 75,000 1879 257,927 

1869 350,000 1880 394,784 

1870 350,000 1881 250,000 

1871 600,000 1882 250,000 

1872 350,000 1883 265,000 

1873 404,000 1884 416,000 

1874 166,000 1885 350,000 

1875 151,618 

1876 321,998 Total 5,713,976 

[48] 



A COW-HUNTERS' COURT 

The range business on a large and profitable scale 
was long since practically done and ended. In Texas 
there remain very few open ranges capable of turning 
off fair grass beef. With the good lands farmed and 
the poor lands exhausted, the ranges have become 
narrower every year ; and every year the cost of get- 
ting fat grass steers has been eating deeper and 
deeper into the rangeman's pocket. Of course, there 
are still isolated ranges where the rangemen still hang 
on, but they are not many, and most of them must 
soon fall easy prey to the ploughshare. 

When the rangeman was forced to lease land in 
Texas, or buy water fronts in the Territories and 
build fences, his fate was soon sealed. With these 
conditions, he soon found that the sooner he reduced 
his numbers, improved his breed, and went on tame 
feed, the better. A corn shock is now a more profita- 
ble close herder than any cow-puncher who ever wore 
spurs. This is a sad thing for an old rangeman to 
contemplate, but it is nevertheless the simple truth. 
Soon the merry crack of the six-shooter will no more 
be heard in the land, its wild and woolly manipulator 
being driven across the last divide, with faint show 
of resistance, by an unassuming granger and his all- 
conquering hoe. 

The rangeman, like many another in the past, has 
served his purpose and survived his usefulness. His 
work is practically done, and few realize what a noble 
[49] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

work it has been, or what its cost in hardship and 
danger. 

I refer, of course, not alone to the development of 
a great industry, which in its time has added millions 
to the material wealth of the country, but to its col- 
lateral results and influence. But for the venture- 
some rangeman and his rifle, millions of acres, from 
the Gulf in the South to Bow River in the far Cana- 
dian Northwest, now constituting the peaceful, pros- 
perous homes of hundreds of thousands of thrifty 
farmers, would have remained for many years longer 
what it had been from the beginning — a hunting and 
battle ground for Indians, and a safe retreat for wild 
game. 

What was the hardship, and what the personal risk 
with which this great pioneer work was accomplished, 
few know except those who had a hand in it, and they, 
as a rule, were modest men who thought little of what 
they did, and now that it is done, say less. 



[50] 



CHAPTER III 

A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

SOME think it fair to give a man warnin' you 
intend to kill him on sight, an' then get right 
down to business as soon as you meet. But 
that ain't no equal chance for both. The man that 
sees his enemy first has the advantage, for the other is 
sure to be more or less rattled. 

" Others consider it a square deal to stan' back to 
back with drawn pistols, to walk five paces apart an' 
then swing and shoot. But even this way is open to 
objections. While both may be equally brave an* de- 
termined, one may be blamed nervous, like, an' excita- 
ble, while the other is cool and deliberate ; one may be 
a better shot than the other, or one may have bad 
eyes. 

" I tell you, gentlemen, none o' these deals are fair ; 
they are murderous. If you want to kill a man in a 
neat an' gentlemanly way that will give both a per- 
fectly equal show for life, let both be put in a narrow 
hole in the ground that they can't git out of, their left 
arms securely tied together, their right hands holdin* 
bowie knives, an' let them cut, an' cut an' cut till one 
is down." 

[51] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

His heavy brow contracted into a fierce frown ; his 
black eyes narrowed and glittered balefully ; his surg- 
ing blood reddened the bronzed cheeks. 

"Let them cut, I say, cut to a finish. That's 
fightin', an' fightin' dead fair. Ah!" and the hard 
lines of the scarred face softened into a look of infinite 
longing and regi'et, " if only I could find another man 
with nerve enough to fight me that way ! " 

The speaker was Mr. Clay Allison, formerly of 
Cimarron, later domiciled at Pope's Crossing. His 
listeners were cowboys. The scene was a round-up 
camp on the banks of the Pecos River near the mouth 
of Rocky Arroyo. Mr. Allison was not dilating upon 
a theory. On the contrary, he was eminently a man 
of practice, especially in the matters of which he was 
speaking. Indeed he was probably the most expert 
taker of human life that ever heightened the prevail- 
ing dull colors of a frontier community. Early in 
his career the impression became general that his 
favorite tint was crimson. 

And yet Mr. Allison was in no sense an assassin. 
I never knew him to kill a man whom the community 
could not very well spare. While engaged as a ranch- 
man in raising cattle, he found more agreeable occu- 
pation for the greater part of his time in thinning out 
the social weeds that are apt to grow quite too lux- 
uriantly for the general good in new Western settle- 
ments. His work was not done as an officer of the law 
[52] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

either. It was rather a self-imposed task, in which 
he performed, at least to his own satisfaction, the 
double functions of judge and executioner. And in 
the unwritten code governing his decisions all offences 
had a common penalty — death. 

Mr. Allison was born with a passion for fighting, 
and he indulged the passion until it became a mania. 
The louder the bullets whistled, the redder the gleam- 
ing blades grew, the more he loved it. 

Yet no knight of old that rode with King Arthur 
was ever a more chivalrous enemy. He hated a foul 
blow as much as many of his contemporaries loved 
"to get the drop," which meant taking your oppo- 
nent unawares and at hopeless disadvantage. In fact 
in most cases he actually carried a chivalry so far as 
to warn the doomed man, a week or two in advance, 
of the precise day and hour when he might expect to 
die. And as Mr. Allison was known to be most scru- 
pulous in standing to his word, and as the victim knew 
there was no chance of a reprieve, this gave him 
plenty of time to settle up his affairs and to prepare 
to cross the last divide. Thus the estates of gentle- 
men who happened to incur Mr. Allison's disap- 
proval were usually left in excellent condition and 
gave little trouble to the probate courts. 

Of course the gentlemen receiving these warnings 
were under no obligations to await Mr. Allison's 
pleasure. Some suddenly discovered that they had 
[53] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

imperative business in other and remote parts of the 
country. Others were so anxious to save him unnec- 
essary trouble that they frequented trails he was 
known to travel, and lay sometimes for hours and 
days awaiting him, making themselves as comfortable 
as possible in the meantime behind some convenient 
boulder or tall nopal, or in the shady recesses of a 
mesquite thicket. But they might as well have saved 
all this bother, for the result was the same. Mr. Alli- 
son could always spare the time to journey even from 
New Mexico to Montana where it was necessary to the 
fulfilment of a promise to do so. 

To those who were impatient and sought him out 
in advance, he was ever obliging and proved ready to 
meet them where and when and how they pleased. It 
was all the same to him. To avoid annoying legal 
complications, he was known to have more than once 
deliberately given his opponent the first shot. 

In the early eighties a band of horse rustlers were 
playing great havoc among the saddle stock in north- 
eastern New Mexico. It was chiefly through Mr. Alli- 
son's industry and accurate marksmanship that their 
numbers were reduced below a convenient working 
majority. The leader vowed vengeance on Allison. 
One day they met unexpectedly in the stage ranch at 
the crossing of the Cimarron. 

Mr. Allison invited the rustler to take a drink. The 
invitation was accepted. It was remarked by the by- 
[54] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

slanders that while they were drinking neither seemed 
to take any especial interest in the brazen pictures 
that constituted a feature of the Cimarron bar and 
were the pride of its proprietor. The next manoeuvre 
in the game was a proposition by Mr. Allison that 
they retire to the dining-room and have some oysters. 
Unable to plead any other engagement to dine, the 
rustler accepted. As they sat down at table, both 
agreed that their pistols felt heavy about their waists, 
and each drew his weapon from the scabbard and laid 
it on his knees. 

While the Cimarron ranch was noted for the best 
cooking on the trail, other gentlemen at dinner seemed 
oddly indifferent to its delicacies, nervously gulped 
down a few mouthfuls and then slipped quietly out 
of the room, leaving loaded plates. 

Presently Mr. Allison dropped a fork on the floor 
— perhaps by accident — and bent as if to pick it up. 
An opening in his enemy's guard the rustler could 
not resist : he grabbed the pistol lying in his lap and 
raised it quickly, but in doing so he struck the muzzle 
beneath the edge of the table, causing an instant's 
delay. It was, however, enough ; Allison had pitched 
sideways to the floor, and, firing beneath the table, 
converted a bad rustler into a good one. 

Dodge City used to be one of the hottest places on 
the Texas trail. It was full of thugs and desperadoes 
of the worst sort, come to prey upon the hundreds of 
[55] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

cowboys wlio were paid off there. Tins money had 
to be kept in Dodge at any cost. Usually the boys 
were easy game. What money the saloons failed to 
get was generally gambled off against brace games 
of faro or moiite. And those who would neither drink 
nor play were waylaid, knocked down, and robbed. 

On one occasion when the Hunter and Evans *' Jin- 
glebob" outfits were in town, they objected to some 
of these enforced levies as unreasonably heavy. A 
pitched battle on the streets resulted. Many of the 
boys were young and inexperienced, and they were 
getting quite the worst of it, when Clay Allison hap- 
pened along and took a hand. 

The fight did not last much longer. When it was 
over, it was discovered that several of Dodge's most 
active citizens had been removed from their field of 
usefulness. For the next day or two, "Boot Hill" 
(the local graveyard) was a scene of unusual activity. 

From all this it fell out that a few days later when 
Clay Allison rode alone out of Dodge returning home, 
he was ambushed a few miles from town by three men 
and shot from his horse. Crippled too badly to re- 
sist, he la}' as if dead. Thinking their work well done, 
the three men came out of hiding, kicked and cursed 
him, shot two or three more holes in him, and rode 
back to town. But Allison, who had not even lost 
consciousness, had recognized them. A few hours 
later the driver of a passing wagon found him and 
[ '^>C ] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

hauled him into town. After lingering many weeks 
between life and death, Allison recovered. As soon 
as they heard that he was convalescing, the three who 
had attacked him wound up their affairs and fled the 
town. 

When able to travel Allison sold his ranch. Ques- 
tioned by his friends as to his plans, he finally ad- 
mitted that he felt it a duty to hunt down the men who 
had ambushed him; remarked that he feared they 
might bushwhack some one else if they were not re- 
moved. 

Number One of the three men he located in Chey- 
enne, Wyoming. Cheyenne was then a law-abiding 
community, and Allison could not afford to take any 
chances of court complications that would interfere 
with the completion of his work. He therefore spent 
several days in covertly watching the habits of his 
adversary. From the knowledge thus gained he was 
able one morning suddenly to turn a street corner and 
confront Number One. Without the least suspicion 
that Allison was in the country, the man, knowing 
that his life hung by a thread, jerked his pistol and 
fired on the instant. As Allison had shrewdly calcu- 
lated, his enemy was so nervous that his shot flew wild. 
Number One did not get a second shot. At the in- 
quest several witnesses of the affray swore that Alli- 
son did not even draw until after the other had fired. 

Several weeks later Number Two was found in 
[57] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Tombstone, Arizona, a town of the good old frontier 
sort that had little use for coroners and juries, so the 
fighting was half fair. Half an hour after landing 
from the stage-coach, Allison encountered his man in 
a gambling-house. Number Two remained in Tomb- 
stone — permanently — while Mr. Allison resumed 
his travels by the evening coach. 

The hunt for Number Three lasted several months. 
Allison followed him relentlessly from place to place 
through half a dozen States and Territories, until he 
was located on a ranch near Spearfish, Dakota. 

They met at last, one afternoon, within the shadow 
of the Devil's Tower. In the duel that ensued, Alli- 
son's horse was killed under him. This occasioned 
him no particular inconvenience, however, for he 
found that Number Three's horse, after having a few 
hours' rest, was able to carry him into Deadwood, 
where he caught the Sidney stage. 

With this task finished, Mr. Allison was able to re- 
turn to commercial pursuits. He settled at Pope's 
Crossing on the Pecos River, in New Mexico, bought 
cattle, and stocked the adjacent range. Pecos City, 
the nearest town, lay fifty miles to the south. 

Started as a " front camp " during the construc- 
tion of the Texas Pacific Railway in 1880, for five 
or six years Pecos contrived to rock along without 
any of the elaborate municipal machinery deemed es- 
sential to the government and safety of urban com- 
[58] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

munities in the effete East It had neither council, 
major, nor peace officer. An early experiment in 
government was discouraging. 

In 1883 the Texas Pacific station-agent was elected 
mayor. His name was Ewing, a little man with fierce 
whiskers and mild blue eyes. Two nights after the 
election a gang of boys from the " Hash Knife " out- 
fit were in town ; fearing circumscription of some of 
their privileges, the election did not have their ap- 
proval. Gleaming out of the darkness fifty yards 
away from the Lone Wolf Saloon, the light of Mayor 
Ewing's office window offered a most tempting target. 
^Miat followed was very natural — in Pecos. 

The Mayor was sitting at his table receiving train 
orders, when suddenly a bullet smashed the telegraph 
key beside his hand and other balls whistled through 
the room bearing him a message he had no trouble in 
reading. Rushing out into the darkness, he spent the 
night in the brush, and toward morning boarded an 
east-bound freight train. Mayor Ewing had ab- 
dicated. The railway company soon obtained an- 
other station-agent, but it was some years before the 
town got another mayor. 

On Pecos carnival nights like this, when some of the 
cowboys were in town, prudent people used to sleep 
on the floor of Van Slyke's store with bags of grain 
piled round their blankets two tiers deep, for no Pecos 
house walls were more than inch boards. 
[59] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

At this early period of its history the few wander- 
ing advance agents of the Gospel who occasionally 
visited Pecos were not well received. They were not 
abused; they were simply ignored. When not other- 
wise occupied, the average Pecosite had too much whit- 
tling on hand to find time to " 'tend meetin' " ; of this 
every pine drj'^goods box in the town bore mute evi- 
dence, its fair sides covered with innumerable rude 
carvings cut by aimless hands. 

This prevailing indifference to religion shocked Mr. 
Allison. As opportunity offered he tried to remedy it, 
and as far as his evangelical work went it was success- 
ful. One Tuesday morning about ten o'clock he 
walked into the Lone Wolf Saloon, laid two pistols on 
the end of the bar next the front door, and remarked 
to Red Dick, the bartender, that he intended to turn 
the saloon into a church for a couple of hours and did 
not want any drinks sold or cards thrown during the 
services. 

Taking his stand just within the doorway, pistol 
in hand, Mr. Allison began to assemble his congrega- 
tion. The first comer was Billy Jansen, the leading 
merchant of the town. As he was passing the door 
Clay remarked: 

" Good-mornin', Mr. Jansen, won't you please step 
inside? Religious services will be held here shortly 
an' I reckon you'll be useful in the choir." 

The only reply to Billy's protest of urgent business 

['go] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

was a gesture that made Billy think going to church 
would be the greatest pleasure he could have that 
morning. 

Mr. Allison never played favorites at any game, 
and so all passers were stopped: merchants, railway 
men, gamblers, thugs, cowboys, freighters — all were 
stopped and made to enter the saloon. The least fur- 
tive movement to draw a gun or to approach the back 
door received prompt attention from the impromptu 
evangelist that quickly restored order in the congre- 
gation. When fifty or sixty men had been brought 
into this improvised fold, Mr. Allison closed the door 
and faced about. 

" Fellers," he said, " this meetin' bein' held on the 
Pecos, I reckon we'll open her by singin' ' Shall We 
Gather at the River?' Of course we're already gath- 
ered, but the song sort o' fits. No gammon now, fel- 
lers ; everybody sings that knows her." 

The result was discouraging. Few in the audience 
knew any hymn, much less this one. Only three or 
four managed to hoarsely drawl through two verses. 

The hymn finished — as far as anybody could sing 
it — Mr. Allison said : 

" Now, fellers, we'll pray. Everybody down ! " 

Only a few knelt. Among the congregation were 
some who regarded the affair as sacrilegious, and 
others of the independent frontier type were unac- 
customed to dictation. However, a slight narrowing 
[61] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

of the cold black eyes and a significant sweep of the 
six-shooter brought every man of them to his knees, 
with heads bowed over faro lay-outs and on monte 
tables. 

"O Lord!" began Allison, "this yere's a mighty 
bad neck o' woods, an' I reckon You know it. Fellers 
don' think enough o' their souls to build a church, an' 
when a pa'son comes here they don' treat him half 
white. O Lord ! make these fellers see that when they 
gits caught in the final round-up an' drove over the 
last divide, they don' stan' no sort o' show to git to 
stay on the heavenly ranch 'nless they believes an' 
builds a house to pray an' preach in. Right here I 
subscribes a hundred dollars to build a church, an' if 
airy one o' these yere fellers don' ante up accordin' 
to his means, Lord, make it Your pers'n'l business 
to see that he wears the Devil's brand and ear mark 
an' never gits another drop o' good spring water. 

"Of course, I allow You knows I don' sport no 
wings myself, but I want to do what 's right ef You '11 
sort o' give me a shove the proper way. An' one thing 
I want You to understan' ; Clay Allison 's got a fast 
horse an' is tol'able handy with his rope, and he's 
goin' to run these fellers into Your corral even if he 
has to rope an' drag 'em there. Amen. Everybody 
git up!" 

While he prayed in the most reverent tone he could 
command, and while his attitude was one of simple 
[62] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

supplication, Mr. Allison never removed his keen eyes 
from the congregation. 

"Reckon we '11 sing again, boys, an' I want a little 
more of it. Le's see what you-all knows." 

At length six or eight rather sheepishly owned to 
knowing " Old Hundred," and it was sung. 
Then the sermon was in order. 

"Fellers," he began, "my ole mammy used to tell 
me that the only show to shake the devil off your trail 
was to believe everythin' the Bible says. What yer 
mammy tells you's bound to be right, dead right, so I 
thmk I'll take the sentiment o' this yere round-up on 
behevm'. 0' course, as a square man I'm boun' to 
admit the Bible tells some pow'ful queer tales, onlike 
anythm' we-'uns strikes now days. Take that tale 
about a fish swallerin' a feller named Jonah; why, a 
fish 't could swaller a man 'od have to be as big in 
the barrel as the Pecos River is wide an' have an 
openm' in his face bigger'n Phantom Lake Cave. No- 
body on the Pecos ever see such a fish. But I wish 
you fellers to distinctly understan' it's a fact I be- 
lieves it. Does you? Every feller that believes a fish 
swallered Jonah, hold up his right hand ! " 

It is sad to have to admit that only two or three 
hands were raised. 

^^ "Well, I'll be durned," the evangelist continued, 
you mr tough cases. That's what's the matter with 
you ; you are shy on faith. You fellers has got to be 
[63] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

saved, an' to be saved you got to believe, an' believe 
hard, an' I'm agoin' to make you. Now hear me, an' 
mind you don' forget it's Clay Allison talkin' to you : 
I tells you that when that thar fish had done swallerin' 
Jonah, he swum aroun' fer a hull hour lookin' to see 
if thar was a show to pick up any o' Jonah's family 
or friends. Noav what I tells you I reckon you're all 
bound to believe. Every feller that believes that 
Jonah was jes' only a sort of a snack fer the fish, hold 
up his right hand ; an' if any feller don' believe it, this 
yere ol' gun o' mine will finish the argiment." 

Further exhortation was unnecessary ; all hands 
went up. 

And so the sermon ran on for an hour, a crude 
homily full of rude metaphor, with little of sentiment 
or pleading, severely didactic, mandatory as if spoken 
in a dungeon of the Inquisition. When Red Dick 
passed the hat among the congregation for a subscrip- 
tion to build a church, the contribution was general 
and generous. Many who early in the meeting were 
full of rage over the restraint, and vowing to them- 
selves to kill Allison the first good chance they got, 
finished by thinking he meant all right and had taken 
about the only practicable means "to git the boys to 
'tend meetin'." 

In the town of Toyah, twenty miles west of Pecos, 
a gentleman named Jep Clayton set the local spring 
styles in six-shooters and bowie knives, and settled the 
[64] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

hash of anybody who ventured to question them. A 
reckless bully, he ruled the town as if he owned it. 

One day John McCulIough, Allison's brother-in- 
law and ranch foreman, had business in Toyah. 
Clayton had heard of Allison but knew little about 
him. Drunk and quarrelsome, he hunted up McCul- 
Iough, called him every abusive name he could think 
of before a crowd, and then suggested that if he did 
not like it he might send over his brother-in-law Alli- 
son, who was said to be a gun fighter. A mild and 
peaceable man himself, McCulIough avoided a diffi- 
culty and returned to Pecos. 

Two days later a lone horseman rode into Toyah, 
stopped at Youngblood's store, tied his horse, and 
went in. Approaching the group of loafers curled 
up on boxes at the rear of the store, he inquired : 

" Can any of you gentlemen tell me if a gentleman 
named Clayton, Jep Clayton, is in town, an' where I 
can find him ? " 

They replied that he had been in the store an hour 
before and was probably near by. 

As the lone horseman walked out of the door, one of 
the loungers remarked: 

" I believe that's Clay Allison, an' ef it is it's all 
up with Jep." 

He slipped out and gave Jep warning, told him 
Allison was in town, that he had known him years 
before, and that Jep had better quit town or say his 
[65] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

prayers. Concluding, he said, "You done barked 
up the wrong tree this time, sure." 

Allison went on from one saloon to another, at each 
making the same polite inquiry for Mr. Clayton's 
whereabouts. At last, out on the street Allison met 
a party of eight men, a crowd Clayton had gathered, 
and repeated his inquiry. A man stepped out of the 
group and said: " My name's Clayton, an' I reckon 
yours is Allison. Look here, Mr. Allison, this is all a 
mistake. I " 

"Why, what's a mistake? Didn't you meet Mr. 
McCullough the other day ? " 

"Yes." 

" Didn't you abuse him shamefully?" 

" Well, yes, but ^" 

" Did n't you send me an invite to come over here ?" 

" Well, yes, I did, but it was a mistake, Mr. Allison ; 
I was drunk. It was whiskey talkin' ; nothin' more. 
I 'm terrible sorry. It was jes' whiskey talk." 

"Whiskey talk, was it? Well, Mr. Clayton, le's 
step in the saloon here and get some whiskey an' see if 
it won't set you goin' again. I believe I'd enjoy hear- 
in' jes' a few words o' your whiskey talk." 

They entered a saloon. For an hour Clayton was 
plied with whiskey, taunted and jeered until those who 
had admired him slunk away in disgust, and those 
who had feared him laughed in enjoyment of his hu- 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

miliation. But no amount of whiskey could rouse 
him that day. 

Allison's scarred, impassive face, low, quiet tones, 
and glittering black eyes held him cowed. The ter- 
ror of Toyah had found his master, and knew it. 

At last, in utter disgust, Allison concluded: 

"Mr. Clayton, your invitation brought me twenty 
miles to meet a gun fighter. I find you such a cur 
that if ever we meet again I'll lash you into strips with 
a bull whip." 

A month later Mr. Clayton was killed by his own 
brother-in-law. Grant Tinnin, one of the quiet good 
men of the country, who never failed to score in any 
real emergency. 

" I wonder how it will all end ! " Allison used often 
to remark while Ij'ing idly staring into the camp-fire. 
" Of course I know I can't keep up this sort o' thing ; 
some one's sure to get me. An' I'd jes' give anything 
in the world to know how I'm goin' to die — by pistol 
or knife." 

It turned out that Fate had decreed other means 
for his removal. 

One day Allison and his brother-in-law John Mc- 
CuUough had a serious quarrel. Allison left the 
ranch and rode into town to think it over. In his later 
years killing had become such a mania with him that 
his best friend could never feel entirely safe against 

[67] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

his deadly temper ; the least difference might provoke 
a collision. McCullough was therefore not greatly 
surprised to get a letter from Allison a few days later, 
sent out by special messenger, telling him that Allison 
would reach the ranch late in the afternoon of the 
next day and would kill him on sight. 

Early in the morning of the appointed day Allison 
left town in a covered hack. He had been drink- 
ing heavily and had whiskey with him. About half- 
way between town and the ranch he overtook George 
Larramore, a freighter, seated out in the sun on top 
of his heavy load. 

" Hello, George ! " called Allison ; " mighty hot up 
there, ain't it ? " 

"Howd'y, Mr. Allison. I don' mind the heat; I'm 
used to it," answered Larramore. 

" George," called Allison, after driving on a short 
distance, " 'pears to me the good things o' this world 
ain't equally divided. I don't see why you should sit 
up there roasting in the sun an' me down here in the 
shade o' the hack. We'll jes' even things a little 
right here. You crawl down off that load an' jump 
into the hack an' I'll get up there an' drive your team." 

" Pow'ful good o' you, Mr. Allison, but " 

" Crawl down, I say, George, it's Clay tellin' 



you 



I" 



And the change was made without further delay. 
Five miles farther up the road John McCullough 
[68] 



A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER 

and two friends lay in ambush all that day and far 
into the night, with ready Winchesters, awaiting Alli- 
son. But he never came. 

Shortly after taking his seat on top of the high 
load in the broiling sun, plodding slowly along in the 
dust and heat, Allison was nodding drowsily, when 
suddenly a protruding mesquite root gave the wagon 
a sharp jolt that plunged Clay headlong into the road, 
where, before he could rise, the great wheels crunched 
across his neck. 



[69] 



CHAPTER IV 

TRIGGERFINGERITIS* 

ON the Plains thirty years ago there were two 
types of man-killers ; and these two types 
were subdivided into classes. 

The first type numbered all who took life in con- 
travention of law. This type was divided into three 
classes: A, Outlaws to whom blood-letting had be- 
come a mania ; B, Outlaws who killed in defence of 
their spoils or liberty; C, Otherwise good men who 
had slain in the heat of private quarrel, and either 
"gone on the scout" or "jumped the country" rather 
than submit to arrest. 

The second type included all who slew in support 
of law and order. This type included six classes: 
A, United States marshals ; B, Sheriffs and their 
deputies ; C, Stage or railway express guards, called 
"messengers" ; D, Private citizens organized as Vigi- 
lance Committees — these often none too discrimi- 
nating, and not infrequently the blind or willing 
instruments of individual grudge or greed; E, Un- 
organized bands of ranchmen who took the trail of 

* Triggerfingeritis is an acute irritation of the sensory 
nerves of the index finger of habitual gun-packers; usually 
fatal — to some one. 

[70] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

marauders on life or property and never quit it; 
F, "Inspectors" (detectives) for Stock Growers' 
Associations. 

Throughout the seventies and well into the eighties, 
in Wyoming, Dakota, western Kansas and Nebraska, 
New Mexico, and west Texas, courts were idle most 
of the time, and lawyers lived from hand to mouth. 
The then state of local society was so rudimentary 
that it had not acquired the habit of appeal to the law 
for settlement of its differences. And while it may 
sound an anachronism, it is nevertheless the simple 
truth that while life was far less secure through that 
period, average personal honesty then ranked higher 
and depredations against property were fewer than 
at any time since. 

As soon as society had advanced to a point where 
the victim could be relied on to carry his wrongs to 
court, judges began working overtime and lawyers 
fattening. But of the actual pioneers who took their 
lives in their hands and recklessly staked them in 
their everyday goings and comings (as, for instance, 
did all who ventured into the Sioux country north of 
the Platte between 1875 and 1880) few long stayed — 
no matter what their occupation — who were slow on 
the trigger: it was back to Mother Earth or home 
for them. 

Of the supporters of the law in that period Boone 
May was one of the finest examples any frontier com- 



THE RED-BLOODED 

munity ever boasted. Early in 1876 he came to 
Cheyenne with an elder brother and engaged in 
freighting thence overland to the Black Hills. Quite 
half the length of the stage road was then infested by 
hostile Sioux. This meant heavy risks and high pay. 
The brothers prospered so handsomely that, toward 
the end of the year, Boone withdrew from freighting, 
bought a few cattle and horses, and built and occupied 
a ranch at the stage-road crossing of Lance Creek, 
midway between the Platte and Deadwood, in the very 
heart of the Sioux country. Boone was then well 
under thirty, graceful of figure, dark-haired, wore a 
slender downy moustache that served only to empha- 
size his youth, but possessed that reserve and repose 
of manner most typical of the utterly fearless. 

The Sioux made his acquaintance early, to their 
grief. One night they descended on his ranch and 
carried off all the stage horses and most of Boone's. 
Although the "sign" showed there were fifteen or 
twenty in the party, at daylight Boone took their 
trail, alone. The third day thereafter he returned 
to the ranch with all the stolen stock, besides a dozen 
split-eared Indian ponies, as compensation for his 
trouble, taken at what cost of strategy or blood 
Boone never told. 

Learning of this exploit from his drivers, Al. Pat- 
rick, the superintendent of the stage line, took the 
next coach to Lance Creek and brought Boone back 
[72] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

to Deadwood, enlisted in his corps of " messengers" ; 
he was too good timber to miss. 

At that time every coach south-bound from Dead- 
wood to Cheyenne carried thousands in its mail- 
pouches and express-boxes ; and once a week a 
treasure coach armored with boiler plate, carrying no 
passengers, and guarded by six or eight "messen- 
gers " or " sawed-off-shotgun men," conveyed often 
as high as two hundred thousand dollars of hard-won 
Black Hills gold bars. 

Thus it naturally followed that, throughout 1877 
and 1878, it was the exception for a coach to get 
through from the Chugwater to Jenny's stockade 
without being held up by bandits at least once. 

Any that happened to escape Jack Wadkins in the 
south were likely to fall prey to Dune Blackburn 
in the north — the two most desperate bandit-leaders 
in the country. 

In February, 1878, I had occasion to follow some 
cattle thieves from Fort Laramie to Deadwood. Re- 
turning south by coach, one bitter evening we pulled 
into Lance Creek, eight passengers inside, Boone May 
and myself on the box with 'Gene Barnett the driver ; 
Stocking, another famous messenger, roosted behind 
us atop of the coach, fondling his sawed-off shotgun. 

From Lance Creek southward lay the greatest 
danger zone. At that point, therefore, Boone and 
Stocking shifted from the coach to the saddle, and, as 
[73] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

'Gene popped his whip and the coach crunched away 
through the snow, both dropped back perhaps thirty 
yards behind us. 

An hour later, just as the coach got well within a 
broad belt of plum bushes that lined the north bank 
of Old Woman's Fork, out into the middle of the road 
sprang a lithe figure that threw a snap shot over 
'Gene's head and halted us. 

Instantly six others surrounded the coach and 
ordered us down. I already had a foot on the nigh 
front wheel, to descend, when a shot out of the brush 
to the west (Boone's, I later learned) dropped the 
man ahead of the team. 

Then followed a quick interchange of shots for per- 
haps a minute, certainly no more, and then I heard 
Boone's cool voice : 

" Drive on, 'Gene ! " 

*' Move an' I'll kill you ! " came in a hoarse bandit's 
voice from the thicket east of us. 

" Drive on, 'Gene, or I'll kill you," came then from 
Boone, in a tone of such chilling menace that 'Gene 
threw the bud into the leaders, and away we flew at 
a pace materially improved by three or four shots the 
bandits sent singing past our ears and over the team ! 
The next down coach brought to Cheyenne the com- 
forting news that Boone and Stocking had killed four 
of the bandits and stampeded the other three. 

Within six months after Boone was employed, both 
[74] 




"into the middle ot the road sprang a lithe rtgure " 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

Dune Blackburn and Jack Wadkins disappeared 
from the stage road, dropped out of sight as if the 
earth had opened and swallowed them, as it probably 
had. Boone had a way of absenting himself for days 
from his routine duties along the stage road. He 
slipped off entirely alone after this new quarry pre- 
cisely as he had followed the Sioux horse-raiders and, 
while he never admitted it, the belief was general that 
he had run down and " planted " both. Indeed it is 
almost a certainty this is true, for beasts of their type 
never change their stripes, and sure it is that neither 
were ever seen or heard of after their disappearance 
from the Deadwood trail. 

Late in the Autumn of the same year, 1878, and 
also at or near the stage-crossing of Old Woman's 
Fork, Boone and one companion fought eight bandits 
led by a man named ToUe, on whose head was a large 
reward. This was earned by Boone at a hold-up of 
a U. P. express train near Green River. 

This band was, in a way, more lucky, for five of the 
eight escaped ; but of the three otherwise engaged 
one furnished a head which Boone toted in a gunny 
sack to Cheyenne and exchanged for five thousand 
dollars, if my memory rightly serves. 

This incident was practically the last of the serious 
hold-ups on the Cheyenne road. A few pikers fol- 
lowed and " stood up " a coach occasionally, but the 
strong organized bands were extinct. 
[75] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Throughout 1879 Boone's activities were trans- 
ferred to the Sidnej-Deadwood road, where for sev- 
eral months before Boone's coming, Curly and Lame 
Johnny had held sway. Lame Johnny was shortly 
thereafter captured, and hanged on the lone tree that 
gave the Big Cottonwood Creek its name. A few 
months later. Curly was captured by Boone and an- 
other, but was never jailed or tried: when nearing 
Deadwood, he tried to escape from Boone, and failed. 

With the Sioux pushed back within the lines of 
their new reservation in southern Dakota and semi- 
pacified, and with the Sidney road swept clean of 
road-agents, life in Boone's old haunts became for 
him too tame. Thus it happened that, while trap- 
ping was then no better within than without the Sioux 
reservation, the Winter of 1879-80 found Boone and 
four mates camped on the Cheyenne River below the 
mouth of Elk Creek, well within the reserve, trapping 
the main stream and its tributaries. For a month 
they were undisturbed, and a goodly store of fur was 
fast accumulating. Then one fine morning, while 
breakfast was cooking, out from the cover of an ad- 
jacent hill and down upon them charged a Sioux war 
party, one hundred and fifty strong. 

Boone's four mates barely had time to take cover 

below the hard-by river bank — under Boone's orders 

— before fire opened. Down straight upon them the 

Sioux charged in solid mass, heels kicking and quirts 

[76] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

pounding their split-eared ponies, until, having come 
within a hundred yards, the mass broke into single file 
and raced past the camp, each warrior lying along 
the off side of his pony and firing beneath its neck — 
the usual but utterly stupid and suicidal Sioux tac- 
tics, for accurate fire under such conditions is of 
course impossible. 

Meantime Boone stood quietly by the camp-fire, 
entirely in the open, coolly potting the enemy as regu- 
larly and surely as a master wing-shot thinning a 
flight of ducks. Three times they so charged and 
Boone so received them, pouring into them a steady, 
deadly fire out of his Winchester and two pistols. 
And when, after the third charge, the war party drew 
off for good, forty-odd ponies and twenty-odd war- 
riors lay upon the plain, stark evidence of Boone's 
wonderful nerve and marksmanship. Shortly after 
the fight one of his mates told me that while he and 
the three others were doing their best, there was no 
doubt that nearly all the dead fell before Boone's fire. 

A type diametrically opposite to that of the debo- 
nair Boone May was Captain Jim Smith, one of the 
best peace-officers the frontier ever knew. Of Cap- 
tain Smith's early history nothing was known, except 
that he had served with great credit as a captain of 
artillery in the Union Army. He first appeared on 
the U. P. during construction days in the late sixties. 
[77] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Serving in various capacities as railroad detective, 
marshal, stock inspector, and the like, for eighteen 
years Captain Smith wrote more red history with his 
pistol (barring May's work on the Sioux) than any 
two men of his time. 

The last I knew of him he had enough dead outlaws 
to his credit — thirty-odd — to start, if not a respec- 
table, at least, a fair-sized graveyard. Captain Jim's 
mere look was almost enough to still the heart-beat 
and paralyze the pistol hand of any but the wildest 
of them all. His great burning black eyes, glowering 
deadly menace from cavernous sockets of extraordi- 
nary depth, were set in a colossal grim face; his 
straight, thin-lipped mouth never showed teeth; his 
heavy, tight-curling, black moustache and stiff black 
imperial always had the appearance of holding the 
under lip closely glued to the upper. In years of inti- 
macy, I never once saw on his lips the faintest hint of 
a smile. He had tremendous breadth of shoulders 
and depth of chest; he was big-boned, lean-loined, 
quick and furtive of movement as a panther. In 
short, Captain Jim was altogether the most fearsome- 
looking man I ever saw, the very incarnation of a re- 
lentless, inexorable, indomitable, avenging Nemesis. 

Like most men lacking humor, Captain Jim was 
devoid of vices ; like all men lacking sentiment, he cul- 
tivated no intimacies. Throughout those years he 
loved nothing, animate or inanimate, but his guns — 
[78] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

the full length "45" that nestled in its breast scab- 
bard next his heart, and the short " 45," sawed off 
two inches in front of the cylinder, that he always 
carried in a deep side-pocket of his long sack coat. 
This was often a much patched pocket, for Jim was 
a notable economist of time, and usually fired from 
within the pocket. That he loved those guns I know, 
for often have I seen him fondle them as tenderly as 
a mother hei first-born. 

In 1879 Sidney, Neb., was a hell-hole, filled with 
the most desperate toughs come to prey upon over- 
land travellers to and from the Black Hills. Of these 
toughs McCarthy, proprietor of the biggest saloon 
and gambling-house in town, was the leading spirit 
and boss. Nightly, men who would not gamble were 
drugged or slugged or leaded. Town marshals came 
and went — either feet first or on a keen run. 

So long as its property remained unmolested the 
U. P. management did not mind. But one night the 
depot was robbed of sixty thousand dollars in gold 
bullion. Of course, this was the work of the local 
gang. Then the U. P. got busy. Pete Shelby sum- 
moned Captain Jim to Omaha and committed the Sid- 
ney situation to his charge. Frequenting haunts 
where he knew the news would be wired to Sidney, Jim 
casually mentioned that he was going out there to 
clean out the town, and purposed killing McCarthy 
on sight. This he rightly judged would stampede, 
[79] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

or throw a chill into, many of the pikers — and 
simplify his task. 

Arrived in Sidney, Jim found McCarthy absent, 
at North Platte, due to return the next day. Coming 
to the station the next morning, Jim found the express 
reported three hours late, and returned to his room 
in the Railway House, fifty yards north of the depot. 
He doifed his coat, shoulder scabbard, and boots, and 
lay down, shortly falling into a doze that nearly cost 
him his life. Most inconsiderately the train made up 
nearly an hour of its lost time. Jim's awakening 
was sudden, but not soon enough. Before he had 
time to rise at the sound of the softly opening door, 
McCarthy was over him with a pistol at his head. 

Jim's left hand nearly touched the gun pocket of 
his coat, and his right lay in reach of the other gun ; 
but his slightest movement meant instant death. 

" Heerd you come to hang my hide up an' skin the 
town, but you're under a copper and my open play 
wins, Black Jim! See.'"' growled McCarthy. 

"Well, Mac," coolly answered Jim, "you're a 
bigger damn fool than I allowed. Never heard of 
you before makin' a killin' there was nothin' in. 
What 's the matter with you and your gang ? I 'm 
after that bullion, and I 've got a straight tip : Lame 
Johnny 's the bird that hooked onto it. If you 're 
standing in with him, you better lead me a plenty, 
for if you don't I'll sure get him." 
[80] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

" Honest? Is that right, Jim? Ain't lyin' none? " 
queried McCarthy, relieved of the belief that his gang 
were suspected. 

" Sure, she's right, Mac." 

" But I heerd you done said you was comin' to do 
me," persisted McCarthy. 

" Think I 'm fool enough to light in diggin' my 
own grave, by sendin' love messages like that to a 
gun expert like you, Mac?" asked Captain Jim. 

Whether it was the subtle flattery or Jim's argu- 
ment, Mac lowered his gun, and while backing out of 
the room, remarked : " Nothin' in mixin' it with you, 
Jim, if you don't want me." 

But Mac was no more than out of the room when 
Jim slid off the bed quick as a cat ; softly as a cat, on 
his noiseless stockinged feet he followed Mac down 
the hall ; crafty as a cat, he crept down the creaking 
stairs, tread for tread, a scant arm's length behind 
his prey — why, God alone knows, unless for a savage 
joy in longer holding another thug's life in his hands. 
So he hung, like a leech to the blood it loves, across 
the corridor and to the middle of the trunk room that 
lay between the hall and the hotel office. There Jim 
spoke : 

"Oh! Mr. McCarthy!" 

Mac whirled, drawing his gun, just in time to re- 
ceive a bullet squarely through the heart. 

During the day Jim got two more scalps. The 
[81] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

rest of the McCarthy gang got the impression that it 
was up to them to pull their freight out of Sidney, 
and acted on it. 

In 1882 the smoke of the Lincoln County War still 
hung in the timber of the Ruidoso and the Bonito, a 
feud in which nearly three hundred New Mexicans 
lost their lives. Depredations on the Mescalero Res- 
ervation were so frequent that the Indians were near 
open revolt. 

Needing a red-blooded agent, the Indian Bureau 
sought and got one in Major W. H, H. Llewellyn, 
since Captain of Rough Riders, Troop H, then a 
United States marshal with a distinguished record. 
The then Chief of the Bureau offered the Major two 
troops of cavalry to preserve order among the Mes- 
caleros and keep marauders off the reservation, and 
was astounded when Llewellyn declined and said he 
would prefer to handle the situation with no other aid 
than that of one man he had in mind. 

Captain Jim Smith was the man. And pleased 
enough was he when told of the turbulence of the 
country and the certainty of plenty doing in his line. 

But by the time they reached the Mescalero 
Agency, the feud was ended ; the peace of exhaustion 
after years of open war and ambush had descended 
upon Lincoln County, and the Mescaleros were glad 

[82] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

enough quietly to draw their rations of flour and cof- 
fee, and range the Sacramentos and Guadalupes for 
game. For Jim and the band of Indian police which 
he quickly organized there was nothing doing. 

Inaction soon cloyed Captain Jim. It got on his 
nerves. Presently he conceived a resentment toward 
the agent for bringing him down there under false 
pretences of daring deeds to be done, that never mate- 
rialized. One day Major Llewellyn imprudently 
countermanded an order Jim had given his Chief of 
Police, under conditions which the Captain took as 
a personal affront. The next thing the Major knew, 
he was covered by Jim's gun and listening to his death 
sentence. 

" Major," began Captain Jim, " right here is where 
you cash in. Played me for a big fool long enough. 
Toted me off down here on the guarantee of the best 
show of fightin' I 've heard of since the war — here 
where there ain't a man in the Territory with nerve 
enough left to tackle a prairie dog, 's far 's I can see. 
Lied to me a plenty, didn't you? Anything to say 
before you quit.'"' 

Since that time Major Llewellyn has become (and 
is now) a famous pleader at the New Mexican bar, 
but I know he will agree that the most eloquent plea 
he has to this day made was that in answer to 
Captain Jim's arraignment. Luckily it won. 

[83] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

A month later Jim called on me at El Paso. At 
the time I was President of the West Texas Cattle 
Growers' Association, organized chiefly to deal with 
marauding rustlers. 

"Howdy, Ed," Jim began, "I've jumped the Mes- 
calero Reservation, headed north. Nothin' doin' 
down here now. But, say, Ed, I hear they're 
crowdin' the rustlers a plenty up in the Indian Ter- 
ritory and the Pan Handle, and she's a cinch they'll 
be down on you thick in a few months. And, say, 
Ed, don't forget old Jim; when the rustlers come, 
send for him. You know he 's the cheapest proposi- 
tion ever — never any lawyers' fees or court costs, 
nothin' to pay but just Jim's wages." 

That was the last time we ever met, and lucky it 
will probably be for me if we never meet again ; for 
if Jim still lives and there is aught in this story he 
sees occasion to take exception to, I am sure to be due 
for a mix-up I can very well get on without. 

From 1878 to 1880 Billy Lykins was one of the 
most efficient inspectors of the Wyoming Stock Grow- 
ers' Association, a short man of heavy muscular 
physique and a round, chenibic, pink and white face, 
in which a pair of steel-blue glittering eyes looked 
strangely out of place. A second glance, however, 
showed behind the smiling mouth a set of the jaw that 
did not belie the fighting eyes. So far as I can now 
[84] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

recall, Billy never failed to get what he went after 
while he remained in our employ. 

Probably the toughest customer Billy ever tackled 
was Doc Middleton. As an outlaw, Doc was the 
victim of an error of judgment. When he first came 
among us, hailing from Llano County, Texas, Doc 
was as fine a puncher and jolly, good-tempered range- 
mate as any in the Territory. Sober and industri- 
ous, he never drank or gambled. But he had his bit 
of temper, had Doc, and his chunk of good old Llano 
nerve. Thus, when a group of carousing soldiers, 
in a Sidney saloon, one night lit in to beat Doc up with 
their six-shooters for refusing to drink with them, the 
inevitable happened in a very few seconds ; Doc killed 
three of them, jumped his horse, and split the wind 
for the Platte. 

And therein lay his error. 

The killing was perfectly justifiable; surrendered 
and tried, he would surely have been acquitted. But 
his breed never surrender, at least, never before their 
last shell is emptied. Flight having made him an 
outlaw, the Government offered a heavy reward for 
him, dead or alive. For a time he was harbored 
among his friends on the different ranches ; indeed 
was a welcome guest of my Deadman Ranch for sev- 
eral days ; but in a few weeks the hue and cry got so 
hot that he had to jump for the Sand Hills south of 
the Niobrara. 

[85] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Ever pursued, he found that honest wage-earning 
was impossible. Presently he was confronted with 
want, not of much, indeed of very little, but that 
want was vital — he wanted cartridges. At this time 
the Sand Hills were full of deer and antelope; and 
therefore to him cartridges meant more even than de- 
fence of his freedom, they meant food. It was this 
want that drove him into his first actual crime, the 
stealing of Sioux ponies, which he ran into the set- 
tlements and sold. 

The downward path of the criminal is like that of 
the limpid, clean-faced brook, bred of a bubbling 
spring nestled in some shady nook of the hills, where 
the air is sweet and pure, and pollution cometh not. 
But there it may not stay; on and yet on it rushes, 
as helpless as heedless, till one day it finds itself 
plunged into some foul current carrying the off- 
scourings of half a continent. So on and down 
plunged Doc; from stealing Indian ponies to lifting 
ranch horses was no long leap in his new code. 

Then our Stock Association got busy and Billy 
Lykins took his trail. Oddly, in a few months the 
same type of accident in turn saved the life of each. 
Their first encounter was single-handed. With the 
better horse, Lykins was pressing Doc so close that 
Doc raced to the crest of a low tonical hill, jumped 
off his mount, dropped flat on the ground and cov- 

[86] 




At a sharp bend of the trail they ran into Doc and five of 
his men" 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

ered Lykins with a Springfield rifle, meantime yell- 
ing to him: 

"Duck, you little Dutch fool; I don't want to 
kill you"; for they knew each other well, and in a 
way were friends. 

But Billy never knew when to stop. Deeper into 
his pony's flank sank the rowels, and up the hill on 
Doc he charged, pistol in hand. At thirty yards Doc 
pulled the trigger, when — wonder of wonders — the 
faithful old Springfield missed fire. Before Doc 
could throw in another shell or draw his pistol, Billy 
was over him and had him covered. 

If my memory rightly serves, the Sidney jail held 
Doc almost a fortnight. A few weeks later Doc had 
assembled a strong gang about him, rendezvoused on 
the Piney, a tributary of the lower Niobrara. There 
he was far east of Lykins's bailiwick, but a good many 
degrees within Lykins's disposition to quit his trail. 
Accompanied by Major W. H. H. Llewellyn and an 
Omaha detective (inappropriately named Hassard), 
Lykins located Doc's camp, and the three lay near 
for several days studying their quarry. 

One morning Llewellyn and Hassard started up 
the creek, mounted, on a scout, leaving Lykins and 
his horse hidden in the brush near the trail. At a 
sharp bend of the path the two ran plunk into Doc 
and five of his men. Both being unknown to Doc's 

[87] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

gang, and the position and odds forbidding hostili- 
ties, they represented themselves as campers hunting 
lost stock, and turned and rode back down the trail 
with the outlaws, alert for any play their leader might 
make. 

Recognizing his man, Billy lay with his " 45 " and 
"70" Sharps comfortably resting across a log; and 
when the band were come within twenty yards of him, 
he drew a careful bead on Doc's head and pulled the 
trigger. By strange coincidence his Sharps missed 
fire, precisely as had Doc's Springfield a few weeks 
before. 

Hearing the snap of the rifle hammer, with a curse 
Doc jerked his gun and whirled his horse toward the 
brush, just as Billy sprang out into the open and 
threw a pistol shot into Doc that broke his thigh. 
Swaying in the saddle, Doc cursed Hassard for lead- 
ing him into a trap, and shot him twice before himself 
pitching to the ground. Hassard stood idly, stunned 
apparently by a sort of white-hot work he was not 
used to, and received his death wound without any 
effort even to draw. Meantime, the firm of Lykins 
and Llewellyn accounted for two more before Doc's 
mates got out of range. Thus, like the brook, Doc 
had drifted down the turbid current of crime till he 
found himself impounded in the Lincoln penitentiary 
with the offscourings of the State. 

While it is true that back into such impounding 
[88] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

most who once have been there soon return, Doc 
turned out to be one of the rare exceptions proving 
the rule ; for the last I heard of him, he was the lame 
but light-hearted and wholly honest proprietor of a 
respectable Rushville saloon. 

When in the early eighties the front camps of the 
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe and the Texas Pa- 
cific met at El Paso, then a village called Franklin, 
within a few weeks the population jumped from a 
few hundred to nearly three thousand. Speculators, 
prospectors for business opportunities, mechanics, 
miners, and tourists poured in — a chance-taking, 
high-living, free-spending lot that offered such rich 
pickings for the predatory that it was not long before 
nearly every fat pigeon had a hungry, merciless vul- 
ture hovering near, watching for a chance to fasten 
its claws and gorge itself. 

The low one-story adobes, fronted by broad, arched 
portals, that then lined the west side of El Paso Street 
for several blocks, was a long solid row of variety 
theatres, dance halls, saloons, and gambling-houses, 
never closed by day or by night. They were packed 
with a roistering mob that drifted from one joint to 
another, dancing, gambling, carousing, fighting. 
Naturally, at first the predatory confined their atten- 
tions to the roisterers. 

Of course every lay-out was a brace game, from 
[89] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

which no player arose with any notable winning ex- 
cept occasionally when the " house " felt it a good bit 
of advertising to graduate a handsome winner — and 
then it was usually a " capper," whose gains were in 
a few minutes passed back into the till. 

The faro boxes were full of springs as a watch; 
faro decks were carefully cut " strippers." An 
average good dealer would shuffle and arrange as he 
liked the favorite cards of known high-rollers. 
These had been neatly split on either edge and a mi- 
nute bit of bristle pasted in, which no ordinary touch 
would feel, but which the sand-papered finger tips of 
an expert dealer would catch and slip through on the 
shuffle and place where they would do (the house) the 
most good. The " tin horns " gave out few but false 
notes ; the roulette balls were kicked silly out of the 
boxes representing heavily played numbers. Not 
content with the " kitty's " rake-off, every stud poker 
table had one or more " cappers " sitting in, to whom 
the dealers could occasionally throw a stiff pot. The 
backs of poker decks were so cunningly marked that 
while the wise ones could read their size and suit 
across the table, no untaught eye could detect their 
guile. And wherever a notable roll was once flashed, 
greedy eyes never left it until it was safe in the till of 
some game, or its owner "rolled" and relieved of it 
by force. 

For months orgy ran riot and the predatory band 
[90] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

grew bolder and cruder in their methods. Killings 
were frequent. Few nights passed without more or 
less street hold-ups — usually more. Respectable cit- 
izens took the middle of the street, literally gun in 
hand, when forced to be out of nights. The Mayor 
and City Council were powerless. City marshals and 
deputies they hired in bunches, but all to no purpose. 
Each fresh lot of appointees were short-lived, liter- 
ally or officially — mostly literally. Finally, a vigi- 
lance committee was formed, made up of good citizens 
not a few of whom were gun experts with their own 
bit of red record. But nothing came of it. The 
predatories openly flouted and defied them. 

On one notable night when the committee were as- 
sembled in front of the old Grand Central Hotel, a 
mob of two hundred toughs lined up before the thirty- 
odd of the committee and dared them to open the 
ball ; and it was a miracle the little Plaza was not 
then and there turned into a slaughter pen bloody as 
the Alamo. It really looked as if nothing short of 
martial law and a strong body of troops could pacify 
the town. 

But one night, into the chamber of the City Council 
stalked a man, the man of the hour, unheralded 
and unknown. He gave the name of Bill Stouden- 
mayer. About all that was ever learned of him was 
that he hailed from Fort Davis. His type was that 
of a coarse, brutal, Germanic gladiator, devoid of 
[91] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

strategy ; a bluff, stubborn, give-and-take fighter, who 
drove bull-headed at whatever opposed him. But El 
Paso soon learned that he could handle his guns with 
as deadly dexterity as did his forebears their nets 
and tridents. 

Asked his business with the Council, he said he 
had heard they had failed to find a marshal who could 
hold the town down, and allowed he'd like to try the 
job if the Council would make it worth his while. 
Questioned as to his views, he explained that he was 
there to make some good money for himself and save 
the city more ; if they would pa^^ him five hundred dol- 
lars a month for two months, they could discharge 
all their deputies and he would go it alone and agree 
to clear the town of toughs or draw no pay. The 
Mayor and Council were paralyzed in a double sense : 
by the wild audacity of this proposal, and by their 
memory of recent threats of the thug-leaders that they 
would massacre the Council to a man if any further 
attempts were made to circumscribe their activities. 
Some were openly for declining the offer, but in the 
end a majority gained heart of Stoudenmayer's own 
hardihood sufficiently to hire him. 

The rest of the night Stoudenmayer employed in 
quietly familiarizing himself with the personnel of 
the enemy. He lost no time. At daylight the next 
morning, several notices, manually written in a rude 
hand and each bearing the signature of the rude hand 
[92] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

that wrote it, were found conspicuously posted be- 
tween Oregon Street and the Plaza. The signature 
was, "Bill Stoudenmayer, City Marshal." 

The notice was brief but pointed: 

"Any of the hold-ups named below I find in town 
after three o'clock to-day, I'm goin' to kill on sight." 

Then followed seventy names. The list was care- 
fully chosen : all " pikers " and " four-flushers " were 
omitted ; none but the elite of the gun-twirling, black- 
jack swinging toughs was included. Hardly a sin- 
gle man was named in the list lacking a more or less 
gory record. 

By the toughs Stoudenmayer was taken as a jest, 
by respectable citizens as a lunatic. Heavy odds 
were offered that he would not last till noon, with 
few takers. And yet throughout the morning 
Stoudenmayer quietly walked the streets, unaccom- 
panied save by his two guns and his conspicuously 
displayed marshal's star. 

Nothing happened until about two o'clock, when 
two men sprang out from ambush behind the big cot- 
tonwood tree that then stood on the northeast comer 
of El Paso and San Antonio Streets, one armed with 
a shotgun and the other with a pistol, and started to 
" throw down " on Stoudenmayer, who was approach- 
ing from the other side of the street. But before 
either got his artillery into action, the Marshal jerked 
his two pistols and killed both, then quietly continued 
[93] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

his stroll, over their prostrate bodies, and past 
them, up the street. It was such an obviously work- 
manlike job that it threw a chill into the hardiest of 
the sixty-eight survivors, — so much of a chill that, 
though Stoudenmayer paraded streets and threaded 
saloon and dance-hall throngs all the rest of the after- 
noon, seeking his prey, not a single man of them could 
he find ; all stayed close in their dens. 

But that the thug-leaders were not idle Stouden- 
mayer was not long learning. In the last moments 
of twilight, just before the pall of night fell upon 
the town, the Marshal was standing on the east side 
of El Paso Street, midway between Oregon and San 
Antonio Streets, no cover within reach of him. Sud- 
denly, without the slightest warning, a heavy fusillade 
opened on him from the opposite side of the street, 
a fusillade so heavy it would have decimated a com- 
pany of infantry. At least a hundred men fired at 
him at the word, and it was a miracle he did not go 
down at the first volley. But he was not even scathed. 
Drawing his pistols, Stoudenmayer marched upon the 
enemy, slowly but steadily, advancing straight, it 
seemed, into the jaws of death, but firing with such 
wonderful rapidity and accuracy that seven of his 
foes were killed and two wounded in almost as many 
seconds, although all kept close as possible behind the 
shelter of the portal columns. And every second he 
was so engaged, at least a hundred guns, aimed by 
[94] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

cruel trained eyes, that scarce ever before had missed 
whatever they sought to draw a bead on, were pouring 
out upon him a hell of lead that must have sounded 
to him like a flight of bees. 

But stand his iron nerve and fatal snap-shooting 
the thugs could not. Before he was half way across 
the street, the hostile fire had ceased, and his would-be 
assassins were flying for the nearest and best cover 
they could find. Out of the town they slipped that 
night, singly and in squads, boarding freight trains 
north and east, stages west and south, stealing 
teams and saddle stock, some even hitting the trails 
afoot, in stark terror of the man. The next morning 
El Paso found herself evacuated of more than two 
hundred men who, while they had been for a time her 
most conspicuous citizens, were such as she was glad 
enough to spare. In twenty- four hours Bill Stouden- 
mayer had made his word good and fairly earned his 
wages; indeed he had accomplished single-handed 
what the most hopeful El Pasoites had despaired of 
seeing done with less authority and force than two or 
three troops of regular cavalry. 

Then El Paso settled down to the humdrum but 
profitable task of laying the foundations for the great 
metropolis of the Farther Southwest. Since then, 
an occasional sporadic case of triggerfingeritis has 
developed in El Paso, usually in an acute form; but 
never once since the night Stoudenmayer turned the 
[95] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

El Paso Street portals into a shambles has it threat- 
ened as an epidemic. 

Unluckily, Bill Stoudenmayer did not last long to 
enjoy the glory of his deed. He was a marked man, 
not merely from motives of revenge harbored by 
friends of the departed (dead or live), but as a man 
with a reputation so big as to hang up a rare prize in 
laurels for any with the strategy and hardihood to 
down him. It was therefore matter of no general 
surprise when, a few weeks after his resignation 
as City Marshal, he fell the victim of a private 
quarrel. 

A few years later, Hal Gosling was the U. S. Mar- 
shal for the Western District of Texas. Early in 
Gosling's regime, Johnny Manning became one of his 
most efficient and trusted deputies. The pair were 
wide opposites : Gosling, a big, bluff, kindly, rollick- 
ing dare-devil afraid of nothing, but a sort that would 
rather chaff than fight; Manning a quiet, reserved, 
slender, handsome little man, not so very much bigger 
than a full-grown "45," who actually sought no quar- 
rels but would rather fight than eat. Each in his 
own way, the pair made themselves a holy terror to 
such of the desperadoes as ventured any liberties 
with Uncle Sam's belongings. 

One of their notable captures was a brace of road- 
agents who had appropriated the Concho stage road 
[96] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

and about everything of value that travelled it. The 
two were tried in the Federal Court at Austin and 
sentenced to hard labor at Huntsville. Gosling and 
Manning started to escort them to their new field of 
activity. Handcuffed but not otherwise shackled, 
the two prisoners were given a seat together near the 
middle of a day coach. By permission of the mar- 
shal, the wife of one and the sister of the other sat 
immediately behind them — dear old Hal Gosling 
never could resist any appeal to his sympathies. 
The seat directly across the aisle from the two pris- 
oners was occupied by Gosling and Manning. With 
the car well filled with passengers and their men 
ironed, the Marshal and his Deputy were off their 
guard. When out of Austin barely an hour, the 
train at full speed, the two women slipped pistols into 
the hands of the two convicted bandits, unseen by the 
officers. But others saw the act, and a stir of alarm 
among those near by caused Gosling to whirl in his 
seat next the aisle, reaching for the pistol in his breast 
scabbard. But he was too late. Before he was half 
risen to his feet or his gun out, the prisoners fired 
and killed him. 

Then ensued a terrible duel, begun at little more 
than arm's length, between Manning and the two pris- 
oners, who presently began backing toward the rear 
door. Quickly the car filled with smoke, and in it 
pandemonium reigned, women screaming, men curs- 
[97] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ing, all who had not dropped In a faint ducking be- 
neath the car seats and trying their best to burrow 
in the floor. When at length the two prisoners 
reached the platform and sprang from the moving 
train, Johnny Manning, shot full of holes as a sieve, 
lay unconscious across Hal Gosling's body; and the 
sister of one of the bandits hung limp across the back 
of the seat the prisoners had occupied, dead of a 
wild shot. 

But Johnny had well avenged Hal's death and his 
own injuries; one of the prisoners was found dead 
within a few yards of the track, and the other was 
captured, mortally wounded, a half-mile away. 

After many uncertain weeks, when Manning's sys- 
tem had successfully recovered from the overdose of 
lead administered by the departed, he quietly resumed 
his star and belt, and no one ever discovered that the 
incident had made him in the least gun-shy. 

Whenever the history of the Territory of New 
Mexico comes to be written, the name of Colonel Al- 
bert J. Fountain deserves and should have first place 
in it. Throughout the formative epoch of her evo- 
lution from semi-savagery to civilization, an epoch 
spanning the years from 1866 to 1896, Colonel Foun- 
tain was far and away her most distinguished and 
most useful citizen. As soldier, scholar, dramatist, 
lawyer, prosecutor, Indian fighter, and desperado- 
[98] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

hunter, his was the most picturesque personality I 
have ever known. Gentle and kind-hearted as a wo- 
man, a lover of his books and his ease, he neverthe- 
less was always as quick to take up arms and undergo 
any hazard and hardship in pursuit of murderous 
rustlers as he was in 1861 to join the California Col- 
umn (First California Volunteers) on its march 
across the burning deserts of Arizona to meet and 
defeat Sibley at Val Verde. A face fuller of the hu- 
manities and charities of life than his would be hard 
to find; but, roused, the laughing eyes shone cold as 
a wintry sky. He despised wrong, and hated the 
criminal, and spent his whole life trying to right the 
one and suppress or exterminate the other. In this 
work, and of it, ultimately, he lost his life. 

In the early eighties, while the New Mexican courts 
were well-nigh idle, crime was rampant, especially in 
Lincoln, Dona Ana, and Grant Counties. To the 
east of the Rio Grande the Lincoln County War was 
at its height, while to the west the Jack Kinney gang 
took whatever they wanted at the muzzle of their guns ; 
and they wanted about everything in sight. County 
peace oflBcers were powerless. 

At this stage Fountain was appointed by the Gov- 
ernor " Colonel of State Militia," and given a free 
hand to pacify the country. As an organized mili- 
tary body, the militia existed only in name. And so 
Fountain left it. Serious and effective as was his 
[99] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

work, no man loved a grand-stand play more than he. 
He liked to go it alone, to be the only thing in the 
spot light. Thus most of his work as a desperado- 
hunter was done single-handed. 

On only one occasion that I can recall did he ever 
have with him on his raids more than one or two men, 
always Mexicans, temporarily deputized. That was 
when he met and cleaned out the Kinney gang over 
on the Miembres, and did it with half the number of 
the men he was after. Among those who escaped was 
Kinney's lieutenant. A few weeks later Colonel 
Fountain learned that this man was in hiding at Con- 
cordia, a placita two miles below El Paso. He was 
one of the most desperate Mexican outlaws the border 
has ever known, a man who had boasted he would 
never be taken alive, and that he would kill Fountain 
before he was himself taken dead, a human tiger, 
whom the bravest peace officer might be pardoned for 
wanting a great deal of help to take. Yet Fountain 
merely took his armory's best and undertook it alone : 
and by mid-afternoon of the very next day after the 
information reached him he had his man safely man- 
acled at the El Paso depot of the Santa Fc Raihvay. 

While waiting for the train. Colonel George Bay- 
lor, the famous Captain of Texas Rangers, chided 
Fountain for not wearing a cord to fasten his pistol 
to his belt, as then did all the Rangers, to prevent its 
loss from the scabbard in a running fight ; and he fin- 
[100] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

ished by detaching his own cord, and looping one end 
to Fountain's belt and the other to his pistol. Then 
Fountain bade his old friend good-bye and boarded 
the train with his prisoner, taking a seat near the 
centre of the rear car. 

When well north of Canutillo and near the site 
of old Fort Fillmore, Fountain rose and passed for- 
ward to speak to a friend who was sitting a few seats 
in front of him, a safe enough proceeding, appar- 
ently, with his prisoner handcuffed and the train do- 
ing thirty-five miles an hour. But scarcely had he 
reached his friend's side, when a noise behind him 
caused him to turn — just in time to see his Mexican 
running for the rear door. Instantly Fountain 
sprang after him, but before he got to the door the 
man had leaped from the platform. Without the 
slightest hesitation. Fountain jumped after him, hit- 
ting the ground only a few seconds behind him but 
thirty or forty yards away, rolling like a tumble- 
weed along the ground. By the time Fountain had 
regained his feet, his prisoner was running at top 
speed for the mesquite thickets lining the river, in 
whose shadows he must soon disappear, for it was 
already dusk. Reaching for his pistol and finding it 
gone — lost evidently in the tumble — and fearing to 
lose his prisoner entirely if he stopped to hunt for it. 
Fountain hit the best pace he could in pursuit. But 
almost at the first jump something gave him a thump 
[101] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

on the shin that nearly broke it, and, looking down, 
there, dangling on Colonel Baylor's pistol-cord, he 
saw his gun. 

Always a cunning strategist, Fountain dropped to 
the ground, sky-lined his man on the crest of a little 
hillock he had to cross, and took a careful two-handed 
aim, which enabled Rio Grande ranchers thereafter 
to sleep easier of nights. 

And now, just as I am finishing this story, the 
wires bring the sad news that dear old Pat Garrett, 
the dean and almost the last survivor of the famous 
man-hunters of west Texas and New Mexico, has 
gone the way of his kind — "died with his boots on." 
I cannot help believing that he was the victim of a 
foul shot, for in his personal relations I never knew 
him to court a quarrel or fail to get an adversary. 
Many a night we have camped, eaten, and slept to- 
gether. Barring Colonel Fountain, Pat Garrett had 
stronger intellectuality and broader sympathies than 
any of his kind I ever met. He could no more do 
enough for a friend than he could do enough to an 
outlaw. In his private affairs so easy-going that he 
began and ended a ne'r-do-well, in his official duties 
as a peace officer he was so exacting and painstaking 
that he ne'r did ill. His many intrepid deeds are 
too well known to need recounting here. 

All his life an atheist, he was as stubbornly con- 
[102] 



TRIGGERFINGERITIS 

tentious for his unbelief as any Scotch Covenanter 
for his best-loved tenets. 

Now, laid for his last rest in the little burying- 
ground of Las Cruces, a tiny, white-paled square of 
sandy, hummocky bench land where the pink of frag- 
ile nopal petals brightens the graves in Spring and 
the mesquite showers them with its golden pods in 
Summer; where the sweet scent of the juajilla loads 
the air, and the sun ever shines down out of a bright 
and cloudless sky ; where a diminutive forest of crosses 
of wood and stone symbolize the faith he in life re- 
fused to accept — now, perhaps, Pat Garrett has 
learned how widely he was wrong. 

Peace to his ashes, and repose to his dauntless 
spirit ! 



[103] 



CHAPTER V 

A JUGGLEE WITH DEATH 

THIS is the story of a man, a virile, strong, re- 
sourceful man, all of whose history from his 
youth to his untimely death thrills one at the 
reading and points lessons worth learning. 

The most careful study and the most just compari- 
son would doubtless concede to Washington Harrison 
Donaldson the high rank — high, indeed, in a double 
sense — of having been the greatest aeronaut the 
world has ever known. 

While a few men have done some great deeds in 
aeronautics which he did not accomplish, nevertheless 
Donaldson did more things never even undertaken 
by any other aeronaut than any man who has ever 
lived. Indeed, much of his work would be deemed by 
mankind at large downright absurd, hair-brained, 
foolhardy, and reckless to the point of actual mad- 
ness; and yet no man ever possessed a saner mind 
than Donaldson ; no man was ever more fond of fam- 
ily, friends, and life in general, or normally more 
reluctant to undertake what he regarded as a need- 
lessly hazardous task. His boldest and most seem- 
ingly reckless feats were to him no more than the 
[104] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

everyday work of a man of a strong mind, of a stout 
heart, and of a perfectly trained body, who had so 
completely mastered every detail of his profession as 
gymnast, acrobat, and aeronaut, that he had come to 
have absolute faith in himself, downright abiding cer- 
tainty that within his sphere of work not only must 
he succeed, but that, in the very nature of things it 
was quite impossible for him to fail. 

Donaldson's story may well serve as an inspira- 
tion, as does that of every man who, with a cool head 
and high courage, takes his life in his hands for 
adventure into the world's untrodden fields. While 
he was regarded by average onlookers as little better 
than a "Merry Andrew," a public shocker, doing 
feats before the multitude to still the heart and freeze 
the blood, those whose fortune it was to know him 
intimately realized him to be a man of the most seri- 
ous purpose, with a great faith in the future of aerial 
navigation. He seemed to be possessed by the con- 
viction that it was one day to become wholly practi- 
cable and generally useful ; for he was keen to do all 
he could to popularize and advance it, and to demon- 
strate its large measure of safety where practised 
under reasonable conditions. 

To many still living his memory is dear — to all in- 
deed who ever knew him well, and it is to his memory 
and to the surviving friends who held him dear I dedi- 
cate this little story. 

[105] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Washington Harrison Donaldson was the son of 
David L. Donaldson, an artist of no mean ability of 
Philadelphia, where the boy was born October 10, 
1840. The mother, of straight descent from a line 
of patriots active during the Revolution, gave the boy 
the name of Washington; the father, an ardent 
worker for General Harrison's candidacy for the 
presidency in the " Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too " cam- 
paign, added the name of Harrison. It is not incon- 
ceivable that this christening with two names so closely 
linked with notable deeds of high emprise in the early 
history of this country, had its influence upon the 
boy. 

As a mere youth he showed the most adventurous 
spirit and ardent ambition to excel his mates, to do 
deeds of skill and dexterity that others could not do. 
When still a child he was running up an unsupported 
eight-foot ladder, and balancing himself upon the 
topmost round in a way to startle the cleverest pro- 
fessional athletes. A little later, getting hold of any 
old rope, stretching it in any old way as a " slack 
rope," he was busy perfecting himself as a slack-rope 
walker. Naturally, school held him only a very few 
years, for his type of mind obviously was not that of 
a student. 

While still in early youth, he got his father's con- 
sent to work in the parental studio, and persevered 
long enough to acquire some ability in sketching. 
[106] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

Later he employed this art in illustrating some of his 
aerial voyages. During these studio days he studied 
legerdemain and ventriloquism, and became one of 
the most expert sleight-of-hand wizards and ventrilo- 
quial entertainers of his time. 

Donaldson's first appearance before the public was 
at the old Long's Varieties on South Third Street 
in Philadelphia. His feats as a rope-walker have 
probably never been surpassed. In 1862 a rope 
twelve hundred feet long was stretched across the 
Schuylkill River at Philadelphia at a height of twelve 
hundred feet above the water. After passing back 
and forth repeatedly over this rope, he finished his 
exhibition by leaping from a rope into the river from 
a height of approximately ninety feet. Two years 
later he successfully walked a rope eighteen hundred 
feet long and two hundred feet high, stretched across 
the Genesee Falls at Rochester, N. Y. Five years 
later he was riding a velocipede on a tight-wire from 
stage to gallery of a Philadelphia theatre, the first to 
do this performance. 

Thus his years were spent between 1857 and 1871 ; 
and great as were the dangers and severe the tasks 
incident to this period of his career, to him it was not 
work but the play he loved. While the work in itself 
was not one to emulate — for there arc perhaps few 
less useful tasks than those that made up his occu- 
pation — nevertheless, he was training himself for his 
[107] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

CJiroor; niul Iho absoluto iuusUm-v o\cy It wliich ho Jic- 
coinplishod, tJic boUlnoss with which he did it, the 
readiness, certainty, and complete success witli which 
he carried out everything he undertook make a lesson 
worth studying. 

Donaldson's career as an aeronaut was brief. His 
first ascent was made August SO, 1871 ; his last, July 
15, 18T5. The story of the first is characteristic of 
the man. In his lexicon there was no such word as 
" fail." His balloon was small, holding only eight 
tliousand cubic feet of gas. The gas was of poor 
quality, and when ready to rise he found it impossible 
even to make a start until all ballast had been thrown 
from the basket; and when at length the start was 
made, it was only to alight in a few minutes on the 
roof of a neighboring house. Bent upon winning 
and doing at all hazards what he had undertaken, 
Donaldson quickly cast overboard all loose objects in 
the basket — ropes, anchors, provisions, even down 
to his boots and coat. Thus relieved of weight, he 
was able to make a voyage of about eighteen 
miles. 

There are two essentials to safe ballooning: first, 
the easy working of the cord which controls the safety 
valve at tlie top of the netting, by which descent may 
be effected when the balloon is going too high ; and 
surplus ballast, which may be thrown out to lighten 
the balloon when approaching the ground, to 
[108] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

avoid striking the earth at dangerouiilj rapid spted 
Hence it followed that, his car having been stripped 
of every bit of weight to obtain the ascent, Donald- 
son's descent was so violent that he was not a little 
bruised before he got his balloon safely anchored 
again upon the earth. 

The difficulties and risks of this first trip, arising 
from the poor appliances he had, were enough to 
discourage, if not deter, a heart less bold than his, 
but to him a new difficulty only meant the letting out 
of another reef in his resolution to conquer it Thus 
it was that immediately upon his return from this, his 
first trip, he not only announced that he would make 
another ascent the ensuing week, but that he would 
undertake something never previously undertaken in 
aerial navigation, namely, that he would dispense with 
the basket or car swung beneath the concrmtrating ring 
of every normal balloon, and in its place would have 
nothing but a simple trapeze bar suspended beneath 
the ring, upon which in mid-air, at high altitude, he 
proposed to perform all feats done by the most highly 
trained gymnasts in trapeze performances. 

His experience on this first trip, to quote his own 
phraseology, was " so glorious that I decided to 
abandon the tight-rope forever." 

The second ascent was made in a light breeze. 
When approximately a mile in height, to quote a 
chronicler : 

[109] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

"Suddenly the aeronaut threw himself backward and 
fell, catching with his feet on the bar, thus sending a 
thriJl through the crowd; but with another spring he was 
upstanding on the bar, and then followed one feat after 
another — hanging by one hand, one foot, by the back of 
his head, etc., until the blood ceased to curdle in the 
veins of the awe-stricken crowd, and they gave vent to 
their feelings in cheer after cheer. His glittering dress 
sparkled in the sun long after his outline was lost to the 
naked eye." 

Intending no long journey, Donaldson climbed 
from the trapeze into the concentrating ring, where 
he seized the cord operating the safety valve and 
sought to open the valve. But the valve stuck and did 
not open readily, thus when Donaldson gave a more 
violent tug at the cord in his effort to open the valve, 
a great rent was torn in the top of the gas bag, 
through which the gas poured, causing the balloon to 
fall with appalling rapidity. Long afterwards Don- 
aldson said that this was the first time in his life that 
he had ever felt actually afraid. Luckily he dropped 
into the top of a large tree, which broke his fall suf- 
ficiently to enable him to land without any serious 
injury. 

Donaldson's sincerity and downright joy in his 
work, and the poetic temperament, which in him was 
always struggling for utterance, are pointed out by 
a chronicler in the words added by him to the descrip- 
tion Donaldson gave of his trip after his return to 
Norfolk in 18T2: 

[110] 




I climbed half-way up the netting, opened my knife with 
my teeth, and cut a hole about two feet long " 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

"The people of Norfolk cannot form the remotest 
conception of the grand appearance of Norfolk from a 
balloon. The city looks almost surrounded by water, 
and the various tributaries to the Elizabeth River ap- 
pear magnificently beautiful, looking like streams of 
silver. Floating over a field of foliage, the trees appear 
all blended together like blades of grass." 

The chronicler adds : 

"Donaldson seemed to be perfectly enraptured by his 
subject, as was evinced by the beaming expression of his 
countenance while relating his experience. The motion 
of the balloon he describes as delightful, particularly in 
ascent, as it appears to be perfectly motionless, and 
every object within view beneath looks as if it were re- 
ceding from you." 

As a token of appreciation of this particular ex- 
ploit, a handsome gold medal was given to Donaldson 
by the citizens of Norfolk. 

A later ascent from Norfolk resulted in one of the 
most perilous experiences ever endured by any aero- 
naut, and indeed developed conditions from which 
none could possibly have hoped to escape with life 
except a perfectly trained and fearless aeronaut. 
His experience on this trip he told as follows : 

"After cutting the basket loose, the balloon shot up 
very rapidly. I pulled the valve cord and the gas 
escaped too freely. I was then almost at the water's 
edge, and going at the rate of one mile a minute. Quick 
work must be done, or a watery grave. I had either to 
cut a hole in the balloon or go to sea, and as there were 
no boats in sight, I chose the lesser evil. Seizing three 
of the cords, I swung out of the ring, into the netting, 
the balloon careening on her side. I climbed half way 
up the netting, opened my knife with my teeth, and cut 
a hole about two feet long. The instant I cut the hole 
[111] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

the gas rushed out so fast that I could scarcely get back 
to the ring. After reaching the ring I lashed myself 
fast to it with a rope. While I was climbing up the rig- 
ging to cut the hole in the side of the balloon^ my cap 
fell off, and so fast did I descend that before I got half 
way down I caught up with and passed the cap. Con- 
tinuing to descend, I struck the ground in a large corn 
field, and was dragged nearly a thousand feet, the wind 
blowing a perfect gale. Crashing against a rail fence, 
I was rendered insensible. When I came to, I found 
myself hanging to one side of a tree, and the balloon 
to tlie otlier side, ripped to shreds. This was the last 
tree. I could have thrown a stone into the ocean from 
where I landed. On this trip I travelled ten miles in 
seven minutes. 

"Manj^ want to know if the wind blows hard up there. 
They do not stop to think that I am carried by the wind, 
and whether I am in a dead calm or sailing at the rate 
of one hundred miles an hour, I am perfectly still; and 
when I went the ten miles in seven minutes I did not 
feel the slightest breeze ; and when I cannot see the earth 
it is impossible to tell whether I am going or hanging 
still." 

Just as Donaldson was a bit of an artist and left 
many sketches illustrating his experiences, so also he 
was a bit of a poet and left many pieces describing in 
lofty tliought, but crude versification, the sentiments 
inspired by his ascents. The following is one of 
them : 

"There's pleasure in a lively trip when sailing through 

the air, 
The word is given, 'Let her go !' To land I know not 

where ; 
The view is grand, 't is like a dream, when many miles 

from home. 
My castle in the air, I love above the clouds to roam." 
[112] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

In prose Donaldson was very much more at home 
than in verse ; indeed many of his descriptions equal 
in clearness and beauty anything ever written of the 
impressions that come to fliers in cloudland. Take, 
for example, the following: 

"It 's a pleasure to be up here, as I sit and look at the 
grand cloud pictures, the most splendid effects of light, 
unknown to all that cling to the surface of the eartli. 
The ever-shifting scenes, the bright, dazzling colors, the 
soft roseate and purple hues, the sudden light and fiery 
sun . . . and on I go as if carried by spiritual 
wings, far above the diminutive objects of a liliputian 
world. We rise in the midst of splendor, where light and 
silence combine to make one wish he never need return." 

Donaldson vras a many-sidedi man — among other 
things, in no small measure a pliilosopher, as when 
he commented as follows : 

"I have noticed on different occasions a class of people 
who were only half alive and who find fault with my ex- 
ercise, which to them looks frightful. Their nervous 
system is not properly balanced. They have too much 
nerves for their system, wliich is caused by want of a 
little moderate exercise up where the air is pure, instead 
of which they spend hours in a place which they call 
their office. They sit themselves in a dark corner, hidden 
from the sun's rays, and in one position remain for 
hours, inhaling the poisonous air with the room full of 
carbonic acid gas, which is as poisonous to man as 
arsenic is to rats ; and in addition to this, will fill their 
lungs with tobacco smoke, and to steady their nerves re- 
quire a stimulation of jierhaps eight or ten brandies a 
day. If I were as helpless as this class of people, then 
my life would be swinging by a thread, and I would wind 
up with a broken neck." 

[113] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

About as sound philosophy and scientific hygiene 
as could well be found. 

And yet another side to his character: the kindly 
nature, the gentleness and generous thought for oth- 
ers, the reluctance to cause needless injury or pain, 
which is always the characteristic of any man of real 
courage. This beautiful side of his nature he once 
hinted at as follows : 

"I cannot look at a person cutting a chicken's head 
off, and as for shooting a poor, innocent bird for sport, 
I think it is a great wrong and should not be allowed. 
Did you ever think what a barbarous set we were — 
worse than Indians or Fiji Islanders? There is nothing 
living but what we torture and kill. As for fear 
my candid opinion is that the only time one is out of 
danger is when sailing through the air in a balloon." 

Early in 1873, after having made twenty-five or 
thirty ascents, and well-nigh exhausted people's ca- 
pacity for sensations and excitements afforded by 
ballooning over terra firma, Donaldson began making 
plans for a balloon of a capacity and equipment ade- 
quate, in his judgment, to enable him to make a suc- 
cessful crossing of the Atlantic to England or the 
Continent. So soon as his plans became publicly 
known, Professor John Wise, who as early as 1843 
had done his best to raise the funds necessary for a 
transatlantic journey by balloon, joined forces with 
Donaldson, and together they made application to 
the authorities of the city of Boston for an adequate 
[114] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

appropriation. This was voted by one Board but 
vetoed by another. Thereupon, The Daily Graphic 
took up their proposition, and undertook the finan- 
cing of the expedition under a formal contract 
executed June 27, 1873. As a consequence of this con- 
tract, Donaldson proceeded to build the largest bal- 
loon ever constructed, of a gas capacity of 600,000 
cubic feet, and a lifting power of 14,000 pounds. 
The total weight of the balloon, including its car, life- 
boat, and equipment, was 7,100 pounds, thus leaving 
approximately 6,000 pounds surplus lifting capacity 
for ballast, passengers, etc. 

Of course, a liberal supply of provisions was to 
be carried, with tools, guns, and fishing tackle, to be 
available for meeting any emergency arising from a 
landing in a wild, unsettled region. Moreover, a care- 
fully selected set of scientific instruments was em- 
braced in the equipment for making observations and 
records of changing conditions en route. 

The inflation of this aerial monster began in 
Brooklyn at the Capitoline Grounds September 10, 
1873. A high wind prevailed, and after the bag had 
received 100,000 cubic feet of gas, she became so 
nearly uncontrollable, notwithstanding 300 men and 
100 sacks of ballast, each sack weighing 200 pounds, 
were holding her down, that Donaldson and his asso- 
ciates decided to empty her. 

On the twelfth of September inflation was again 
[116] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

undertaken, although a high wind again prevailed. 
When something more than half full, the bag burst, 
and the aeronauts concluded that she was of a size 
impossible to handle. The bag and rigging were 
thereupon taken in hand, and she was reduced one- 
half; that is, to a capacity of 300,000 cubic feet of 
gas. 

The remodelling was finished early in October, and 
inflation of this new balloon was begun at 1 p. m. on 
Sunday, October 6, and by 10:30 p. m. of that day 
the inflation was completed, the life-boat was at- 
tached, and she was firmly secured for the night. 

At nine the next m.orning the crew took their places 
in the boat. Donaldson as aeronaut; Alfred Ford 
as correspondent for the Graphic; George Ashton 
Lunt, an experienced seaman, as navigator. Ascent 
was made without incident, the balloon drifting first 
to the north, and then to the southward toward Long 
Island Sound. 

Unhappily this voyage was brief, and very nearly 
tragical in its finish. About noon the balloon en- 
tered the field of a storm of wind and rain of extraor- 
dinary violence, and before long the cordage, etc., 
was so heavily loaded with moisture, that although 
practically all available ballast was disposed of, the 
balloon descended in spite of them. The speed of 
the balloon was so great that Donaldson did not dare 
hazard a dash against some house, or into some for- 
[116] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

est or other obstacle, but selected a piece of open 
ground, and advised his companions to luuig by their 
hands over the side of the boat and drop at the word. 
The word at length given by Donaldson, both he and 
Ford dropped — a distance of about thirty feet, 
happily without serious injury other than a severe 
shaking up. Lunt, curious about the distance and 
the effect of such a fall, as well as unfamiliar with the 
action of a balloon when relieved of weight, hung 
watching the descent of his companions — only to 
realize quickly that he was shooting up into the air 
like a rocket. Then he clambered back into the boat. 
However, it was not long before, again weighted and 
beaten down by the continuing rain, the balloon de- 
scended upon a forest, where Lunt swung himself into 
a tree top, whence he dropped through its branches 
to the earth, practically unhurt. 

Thus ended the transatlantic voyage of the 
Graphic balloon, a voyage that constitutes the only 
serious failure I can recall of anj'thing in the line of 
his profession as an aeronaut that Donaldson ever 
undertook to do. This failure is not to be counted 
to his discredit, for precisely as a good soldier does 
not surrender until his last round of ammunition is 
spent, so Donaldson did not give in until his last 
pound of ballast was exhausted. 

In all respects the most brilliant aerial voyage ever 
made by Donaldson was his sixty-first ascension, on 
[117] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

July 24, 1874, a voyage which continued for twenty- 
six hours. This was the longest balloon voyage in 
point of hours ever made up to that time, and indeed 
it remained a world's record for endurance up in the 
air until 1900, and the endurance record in the 
United States, until the recent St. Louis Cup Race. 

The( ascent was made from Barnum's "Great Ro- 
man Hippodrome," which for some years occupied 
the site of what is now Madison Square Garden, in a 
balloon built by Mr. Barnum to attempt to break the 
record for time and distance of all previous balloon 
voyages. An account of this thrilling trip is given 
in the following chapter of this book. 

The history of the ascent Donaldson made from 
Toronto, Canada, on June 23, 1875, is in itself a suf- 
ficient refutation of the charges made less than a 
month later, that on his last trip he sacrificed his pas- 
senger, Grimwood, to save his own life. On his To- 
ronto trip he was accompanied by Charles Pirie, of 
the Globe; Mr. Charles, of the Leader; and Mr. 
Devine, of the Advertiser. On this occasion Don- 
aldson accepted the three passengers under the 
strongest protest, after having told them plainly that 
the balloon was leaky, the wind blowing out upon the 
lake, and that the ascent must necessarily be a pecu- 
liarly dangerous one. Nevertheless, they decided to 
take the hazard. Later they regretted their temer- 
ity. Husbanding his ballast as best he could, never- 
[118 1 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

theless, the loss of gas through leakage was such that 
by midnight, when well over the centre of Lake On- 
tario, the balloon descended into a rough, tempestuous 
sea, and was saved from immediate destruction only 
by the cutting away of both the anchor and the drag 
rope. This gave them a temporary lease of life, but 
at one o'clock the car again struck the waters and 
dragged at a frightful speed through the lake, com- 
pelling the passengers to stand on the edge of the 
basket and cling to the ropes, the cold so intense they 
were well-nigh benumbed. At length they were res- 
cued by a passing boat, but this was not until after 
three o'clock in the morning. 

Of Donaldson's conduct in these hours of terrible 
extremity, a passenger wrote: 

"But for his judicious use of the ballast, his complete 
control of the balloon as far as it could be controlled, 
his steady nerve, kindness, and coolness in the hour of 
danger, the occupants would never have reached land. 
The party took no provisions with them except- 
ing two small pieces of bread two inches square, which 
Mr. Devine happened to have in his pocket. At eleven at 
night, the Professor, having had nothing but a noon 
lunch, was handed up the bread. . . . About three 
o'clock in the morning, when the basket was wholly im- 
mersed in the water, and the inmates clinging almost 
lifelessly to the ropes, the Professor climbed down to 
them, and they were surprised to see in his hand the two 
small pieces of bread they had given him the night be- 
fore. He had hoarded it up all night, and instead of 
eating it he said with cheery voice, 'Well, boys, all is 
up. Divide this among you. It may give you strength 
enough to swim.' There was not a man among them that 

[119] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

would touch it until the Professor first partook of it. It 
was only a small morsel for each. . . . He said that 
he had but one life-preserver on board, and suggested we 
should draw lots for the man who should leave and 
lighten the balloon." 

While this discussion was on, the boat approached 
that saved them. 

This simple story of Donaldson's true courage, 
cheerfulness, self-denial, readiness to sacrifice himself 
for others, is no less than an epic of the noblest hero- 
ism that stands an irrefutable answer to the charge 
later made that Donaldson sacrificed Grimwood. 

Three weeks later — to be precise, on the fifteenth 
of July — Donaldson and his beloved airship, the 
P. T. Barnum, made their last ascent, from Chicago. 
The balloon was already old — more than a year old 
— the canvas weakened and in many places rent and 
patched, the cordage frail. In short, the balloon was 
in poor condition to stand any extraordinary stress 
of weather. 

His companion on this trip was Mr. Newton S. 
Grimwood, of The Chicago Evening Journal. Don- 
aldson had expected to be able to take two men ; and 
Mr. Maitland, of the Post S^- Mail, was present with 
the other two in the basket immediately before the 
hour of starting. At the last moment Donaldson 
concluded that it was unwise to take more than one, 
and required lots to be drawn. Maitland tossed a 
coin, called "Heads," and won; but Mr. Thomas, 
r 120 ] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

the press agent, insisted that the usual method of 
drawing written slips from a hat be followed, and on 
this second lot-casting Maitland lost his place in the 
car, but won his life. 

The ascent was made about 5 p. m., the prevailing 
wind carrying them out over Lake Michigan. About 
7 p. m. a tug-boat sighted the balloon, then about 
thirty miles off shore, trailing its basket along the 
surface of the lake. The tug changed her course to 
intercept the balloon, but before it was reached, prob- 
ably through the cutting away of the drag rope and 
anchor, the balloon bounded into the air, and soon 
disappeared, and never again was aught of Donald- 
son or the balloon Barnum seen by human eye. A 
little later a storm of extraordinary fury broke over 
the lake — a violent electric storm accompanied by 
heavy rain. 

Weeks passed with no news of the voyagers or their 
ship. A month later the body of Grimwood was 
found on the shores of Lake Michigan and fully 
identified. 

The precise story of that terrible night will never 
be written, but knowing the man and his trade, se- 
quence of incident is as plain to me as if told by one 
of the voyagers. Evidently the balloon sprung a 
leak early. The last ballast must have been spent 
before the tug saw her trailing in the lake. Then 
anchor and drag ropes were sacrificed. This would 
[121] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

inevitably give the balloon travelling power for a 
considerable time, — time of course depending on the 
measure of the leak of gas, — but ultimately she must 
again have descended upon the raging waters of the 
lake, where Grimwood, of untrained strength, soon 
became exhausted while trying to hold himself secure 
in the ring, and fell out into the lake. Thus again 
relieved of weight, the balloon received a new lease 
of life, and travelled on probably, to a fatal final de- 
scent in some untrodden corner of the northern for- 
est, where no one ever has chanced to stumble across 
the wreck. For had the balloon made its final de- 
scent into the lake, it would have been only after the 
basket was utterly empty, all the loose cordage cut 
away, and a type of wreck left that would float for 
weeks or months and would almost certainly have 
been found. Indeed, for months afterwards the 
writer and many others of Donaldson's friends held 
high hopes of hearing of him returned in safety from 
some remote distance in the wilds. But this was not 
to be. 

One more incident and I have done. 

Six or seven years ago I read in the columns of 
the Sun an article copied from a Chicago paper, evi- 
dently written by some close friend of the unfortunate 
Grimwood, making a bitter attack upon Donaldson 
for having sacrificed his passenger's life to save his 
own. The story moved me so much that I wrote 
[122] 



A JUGGLER WITH DEATH 

an open letter to the Sun over my own signature, in 
which I sought to refute the charge by recounting the 
story of Donaldson's noble conduct, and his constant 
readiness for self-sacrifice in other situations quite 
as dire. 

A few days later, sitting in my office, I was frozen 
with astonishment when a written card was handed 
in to me bearing the name " Washington H. Donald- 
son" ! As soon as I could recover myself, the bearer 
of the card was asked in. He was a man within 
a year or two of my friend's age at the time of his 
death. Wash Donaldson's very self in face and figure ! 
He had the same bright, piercing eye, that looked 
straight into mine; the same lean, square jaws and 
resolute mouth ; the same waving hair, the same low, 
cool, steady voice — such a resemblance as to dull my 
senses, and make me wonder and grope to understand 
how my friend could thus come back to me, still young 
after so many years. 

It was Donaldson's son, a babe in arms at the time 
his father sailed away to his death ! 

In a few simple words he told me that he and his 
family lived in a small village. With infinite grief 
they had read the article charging his father with 
unmanly conduct — a grief that was the greater be- 
cause they possessed no means to refute the charge. 
Brokenly, with tears of gratitude, he told of their 
joy in reading my statements in his father's defence, 
[123] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

and how he had been impelled to come and try in 
person to express to me the gratitude he felt he could 
not write. 

Poor though this man may be in this world's goods, 
in the record of his father's character and deeds he 
owns a legacy fit to give him place among the Peers 
of Real Manhood. 

Through some mischance I have lost the address 
of Donaldson's son. Should he happen to read these 
lines I hope he will communicate with me. 



[124] 



CHAPTER VI 

AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

IN the history of contests since man first began 
striving against his fellows, seldom has a record 
performance stood so long unbroken as that of 
the good airship Barnum, made thirty-three years 
ago. Of her captain and crew of five men, six all 
told, the writer remains the sole survivor, the only 
one who may live to see that record broken in this 
country. 

The Barnum rose at 4 p. m. July 26, 1874, from 
New York and made her last landing nine miles north 
of Saratoga at 6 :07 p. m. of the twenty-seventh, thus 
finishing a voyage of a total elapsed time of twenty- 
six hours and seven minutes. In the interim she made 
four landings, the first of no more than ten minutes ; 
the second, twenty ; the third, ten ; the fourth, thirty- 
five; and these descents cost an expenditure of gas 
and ballast which shortened her endurance capacity 
by at least two or three hours. 

Tracing on a map her actual route traversed, gives 
a total distance of something over four hundred 
miles, which gave her the record of second place in 
the history of long-distance ballooning in this coun- 
try, a record which she still holds. 
[ 125 1 



THE RED-BLCX)DED 

So far as my knowledge of the art goes, and I have 
tried to read all of its history, the Barnum's voyage 
of twenty-six hours, seven minutes was then and re- 
mained the world's endurance record until 1900; and 
it still remains, in point of hours up, the longest 
balloon voyage ever made in the United States. 

The longest voyage in point of distance ever made 
in this country was that of John Wise and La Moun- 
tain, in the fifties, from St. Louis, Mo., to Jefferson 
County, N. Y., a distance credited under the old cus- 
tom of a little less than twelve hundred miles, while 
the actual distance under the new rules is between 
eight hundred and nine hundred miles, the time being 
nineteen hours. This voyage also remained, I believe, 
the world's record for distance until 1900, and still 
remains the American record — and lucky, indeed, 
will be the aeronaut who beats it. 

P. T. Barnum's "Great Roman Hippodrome," 
now for many years Madison Square Garden, was 
never more densely crowded than on the afternoon of 
July 26, 1874. Early in the Spring of that year Mr. 
Barnum had announced the building of a balloon 
larger than any theretofore made in this country. 
His purpose in building it was to attempt to break all 
previous records for time and distance, and he invited 
each of five daily city papers of that time to send rep- 
resentatives on the voyage. So when the day set for 

[126] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

the ascent arrived, not only was the old Hippodrome 
packed to the doors, but adjacent streets and squares 
were solid black with people, as on a fete day like 
the Dewey parade. 

Happily the day was one of brilliant sunshine 
and clear sky, with scarcely a cloud above the 
horizon. 

The captain of the Barnum was Washington H. 
Donaldson, by far the most brilliant and daring pro- 
fessional aeronaut of his day, and a clever athlete and 
gymnast. For several weeks prior to the ascent of 
the Barnum, Donaldson had been making daily short 
ascents of an hour or two from the Hippodrome in a 
small balloon — as a feature of the performance. 
Sometimes he ascended in a basket, at other times with 
naught but a trapeze swinging beneath the concen- 
trating ring of his balloon, himself in tights perched 
easily upon the bar of the trapeze. And when at a 
height to suit his fancy — of a thousand feet or more 
— many a time have I seen him do every difficult feat 
of trapeze work ever done above the security of a net. 

Such was Donaldson, a man utterly fearless, but 
reckless only when alone, of a steadfast, cool courage 
and resource when responsible for the safety of others 
that made him the man out of a million best worth 
trusting in any emergency where a bold heart and 
ready wit may avert disaster. 

[127] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Donaldson's days were never dull. 

The day preceding our ascent his balloon was re- 
leased with insufficient lifting power. As soon as he 
rose above neighboring roofs, a very hi^h southeast 
wind caught him, and, before he had time to throw 
out ballast, drove his basket against the flagstaff on 
the Gilsey House with such violence that the staff was 
broken, and the basket momentarily upset, dumping 
two ballast bags to the Broadway sidewalk where 
they narrowly missed several pedestrians. 

That he himself was not dashed to death was a 
miracle. But to him this was no more than a bit 
unusual incident of the day's work. 

The reporters assigned as mates on this skylark 
in the Barnum were Alfred Ford, of the Graphic; 
Edmund Lyons, of the Sun; Samuel MacKeever, of 
the Herald; W. W. Austin, of the World (every 
one of these good fellows now dead, alas !) and my- 
self, representing the Tribune. 

Lyons, MacKeever, and myself were novices in bal- 
looning, but the two others had scored their bit of 
aeronautic experience. Austin had made an ascent 
a year or two before at San Francisco, was swept 
out over the bay before he could make a landing, 
and, through some mishap, dropped into the water 
midway of the bay and well out toward Golden Gate, 
where he was rescued by a passing boat. Ford had 

[128] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

made several balloon voyages, the most notable in 
1873, in the great Graphic balloon. 

After the voyage of the Bamum was first announced 
and it became known that the Tribune would have 
a pass, everybody on the staff wanted to go. For 
weeks it was the talk of the office. Even grave gray- 
beards of the editorial rooms were paying court for 
the preference to Mr. W. F. G. Shanks, that prince 
of an earlier generation of city editors, who of course 
controlled the assignment of the pass. But when at 
length the pass came, the enthusiasm and anxiety for 
the distinction waned, and it became plain that the 
piece of paper " Good for One Aerial Trip," etc., 
must go begging. 

At that time I was assistant night city editor, and 
a special detail to interview the Man in the Moon was 
not precisely in the line of my normal duties. I was 
therefore greatly surprised (to put it conservatively) 
when, the morning before the ascent, Mr. Shanks, in 
whose family I was then living, routed me out of bed 
to say : 

" See here, Ted, you know Bamum's balloon starts 
to-morrow on her trial for the record, but what you 
don't know is that we are in a hole. Before the ticket 
came every one wanted to go, from John R. G. Has- 
sard down to the office boy. Now no one will go — 
all have funked it, and I suppose you will want to 
follow suit ! " 

[129] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Thus diplomatically put, the hinted assignment 
was not to be refused without too much personal 
chagrin. 

So it happened that about 3 :30 p. m. the next day 
I arrived at the Hippodrome, loaded down with wraps 
and a heavy basket nigh bursting with good things 
to eat and drink, which dear Mrs. Shanks had insisted 
on providing. 

The Barnum was already filled with gas, tugging 
at her leash and swaying restlessly as if eager for the 
start. And right here, at first sight of the great 
sphere, I felt more nearly a downright fright than at 
any stage of the actual voyage ; the balloon appeared 
such a hopelessly frail fabric to support even its own 
car and equipment. The light cord net enclosing 
the great gas-bag looked, aloft, where it towered 
above the roof, little more substantial than a film of 
lace ; and to ascend in that balloon appeared about as 
safe a proposition as to enmesh a lion in a cobweb. 

Already my four mates for the voyage were assem- 
bled about the basket, and Donaldson himself was 
busy with the last details of the equipment. My 
weighty lunch basket had from my mates even a 
heartier reception than I received, but their joy over 
the prospect of delving into its generous depths was 
short-lived. The load as Donaldson had planned it 
was all aboard, weight carefully adjusted to what he 

[130] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

considered a proper excess lifting power to carry us 
safely up above any chance of a collision with another 
flagstaff, as on the day before above the Gilsey 
House. Thus the basket and all its bounty (save 
only a small flask of brandy I smuggled into a hip 
pocket) were given to a passing acrobat. 

At 4 p. m. the old Hippodrome rang with applause ; 
a brilliant equestrian act had just been finished. 
Suddenly the applause ceased and that awful hush fell 
upon the vast audience which is rarely experienced 
except in the presence of death or of some impending 
disaster ! We had been seen to enter the basket, and 
people held their breath. 

Released, the balloon bounded seven hundred feet 
into the air, stood stationary for a moment, and then 
drifted northwest before the prevailing wind. 

In this prodigious leap there was naught of the 
disagreeable sensation one experiences in a rapidly 
rising elevator. Instead it rather seemed that we 
were standing motionless, stationary in space, and that 
the earth itself had gotten loose and was dropping 
away beneath us to depths unknown. Every cord 
and rope of the huge fabric was tensely taut, the 
basket firm and solid beneath our feet. Indeed, the 
balloon, with nothing more substantial in her con- 
struction than cloth and twine, and hempen ropes and 
willow wands (the latter forming the basket), has 

[131] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

always, while floating in mid-air free of the drag 
rope's tricks, the rigid homogeneity of a rock, a solid- 
ity that quickly inspires the most timid with perfect 
confidence in her security. 

Ballast was thrown out by Donaldson, — a little. 
At Seventh Avenue and Forty-second Street our alti- 
tude was 2,000 feet. The great city lay beneath 
us like an unrolled scroll. White and dusty, the 
streets looked like innumerable strips of Morse tele- 
graph paper — the people the dots, the vehicles the 
dashes. Central Park, with its winding waters, was 
transformed into a superb mantle of dark green vel- 
vet splashed with silver, worthy of a royal fete. Be- 
hind us lay the sea, a vast field of glittering silver. 
Before us lay a wide expanse of Jersey's hills and 
dales that from our height appeared a plain, with 
many a reddish-gray splash upon its verdant stretches 
that indicated a village or a town. 

Above and about us lay an immeasurable space of 
which we were the only tenants, and over which we 
began to feel a grand sense of dominion that wrapped 
us as in royal ermine: if we were not lords of this 
aerial manor, pray, then, who were? Beneath us, lay 
■ — home. Should we ever see it again? This thought 
I am sure came to all of us. I know it came to me. 
But the perfect steadiness of the balloon won our 
confidence, and we soon gave ourselves up to the grat- 

[132] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

ification of our enviable position ; and enviable indeed 
it was. For who has not envied the eagle his power 
to skim the tree-tops, to hover above Niagara, to cir- 
cle mountain peaks, to poise himself aloft and survey 
creation, or to mount into the zenith and gaze at the 



sun 



Indeed our sense of confidence became such that, 
while sitting on the edge of the basket to reach and 
pass Donaldson a rope he asked for, I leaned so far 
over that the bottle of brandy resting in my hip 
pocket slipped out and fell into the Hudson. 

Oddly, Ford, who was the most experienced bal- 
loonist of the party after Donaldson himself, seemed 
most nervous and timid, but it was naught but an 
expression of that constitutional trouble (dizziness) 
so many have when looking down from even the minor 
height of a step-ladder. In all the long hours he wag 
with us, I do not recall his once standing erect in the 
basket, and when others of us perched upon the bas- 
ket's edge, he would beg us to come down. But mind, 
there was no lack of stark courage in Alfred Ford, 
suflBciently proved by the fact that he never missed 
a chance for an ascent. 

But safe? Confident.'' Why, before we were up 
ten minutes, Lyons and MacKeever were sitting on 
the edge of the basket, with one hand holding to a 
stay, tossing out handfuls of small tissue paper cir- 

[ 133 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

culars bearing " News from the Clouds." Many- 
colored, these little circulars as they fell beneath us 
looked like a flight of giant butterflies, and we kept 
on throwing out handfuls of them until our pilot 
warned us we were wasting so much weight we should 
soon be out of easy view of the earth! Indeed, the 
balance of the balloon is so extremely fine that when 
a single handful of these little tissue circulars was 
thrown out, increased ascent was shown on the dial 
of our aneroid barometer! 

At 4:30 p. m. we had drifted out over the Hudson 
at an altitude of 2,500 feet. Here Donaldson de- 
scended from the airy perch which he had been oc- 
cupying since our start on the concentrating ring, 
when one of us asked how long he expected the cruise 
to last. He replied thati he hoped to be able to sail 
the Barnum at least three or four days. 

"But," he added, "I shall certainly be unable to 
carry all of you for so long a journey, and shall be 
compelled to drop you one by one. So you had best 
draw lots to settle whom I shall drop first, and in 
what order the rest shall follow." 

Sailing then 2,500 feet above the earth, Lyons 
voiced a thought racing from my own brain for 
utterance when he blurted out: "What the deuce 
do you mean by 'drop' us?" Indeed, the 
question must have been on three other tongues as 

[134] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

well, for Donaldson's reply, " Oh, descend to the 
earth and let you step out then," was greeted by all 
five of us with a salvo of deep, lusty sighs of relief. 

Then we drew lots for the order of our going, Mac- 
Keever drawing first, Austin second, Lyons third, 
Ford fourth, and I fifth. 

Meantime, beneath us on the river vessels which 
from our height looked like the toy craft on the lake 
in Central Park were whistling a shrill salute that, 
toned down by the distance, was really not unmusical. 

Having crossed the Hudson and swept above Wee- 
hawken, we found ourselves cruising northwest over 
the marshes of the Hackensack. 

As the heat of the declining sun lessened, our cooling 
gas contracted and the balloon sank steadily until 
at 5 :10 we were 250 feet above the earth and 100 feet 
of our great drag rope was trailing on the ground. 
Within hailing distance of people beneath us, a curious 
condition was observed. We could hear distinctly all 
they said, though we could not make them understand 
a word : our voices had to fill a sphere of air ; theirs, 
with the earth beneath them, only a hemisphere. 
Thus the modem megaphone is especially useful to 
aeronauts. 

Hereabouts our fun began. Many countrymen 
thought the balloon running away with us and tried 
to stop and save us — always by grasping the drag 

[ 135 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

rope, bracing themselves, and trying literally to hold 
us ; when the slack of the rope straightened, they per- 
formed somersaults such as our pilot vowed no aero- 
bat could equal. And yet the balance of the balloon 
is so fine that even a child of ten can pull one down, 
if only it has strength enough to withstand occasional 
momentary lifts off the ground. Occasionally one 
more clever would run and take a quick turn of the 
rope about a gate or fence — and then spend the rest 
of the evening gathering the scattered fragments and 
repairing the damage. 

And when there was not fun enough below. Don- 
aldson himself would take a hand and put his steed 
through some of her fancy paces — as when, ap- 
proaching a large lake, he told us to hold tightly to 
the stays, let out gas and dropped us, bang! upon 
the lake. Running at a speed of twelve or fifteen 
miles an hour, we hit the water with a tremendous 
shock, bounded thirty or forty feet into the air, 
descended again and literally skipped in great leaps 
along the surface of the water, precisely like a well- 
thrown " skipping stone." Then out went ballast 
and up and on we went, no worse for the fun beyond 
a pretty thorough wetting ! 

At 6:20 p. m. we landed on the farm of Garrett 
Harper in Bergen County, twenty-six miles from New 
York. After drinking our fill of milk at the farm- 
house, we rose again and drifted north over Ram- 
[136] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

apo until, at 7:30, a dead calm came upon us 
and we made another descent. We then found that 
we had landed near Bladentown on the farm of Miss 
Charlotte Thompson, a charming actress of the day 
whose " Jane Eyre " and " Fanchon " are still pleas- 
ant memories to old theatre-goers. Loading our 
balloon with stones to anchor it, our party paid her 
a visit and were cordially received. An invitation 
to join us hazarded by Donaldson, Miss Thompson 
accepted with delight. I do not know if she is still 
living, but if she is, she cannot have forgotten her 
half-hour's cruise in the good airship Barnum, wafted 
silently by a gentle evening breeze, the lovely pan- 
orama beneath her half hid, half seen through the 
purple haze of twilight. 

After landing Miss Thompson at 8 :18 we ascended 
for the night, for a night's bivouac among the stars. 
The moon rose early. We were soon sailing over 
the Highlands of the Hudson. Off in the east we 
could see the river, a winding ribbon of silver. We 
were running low, rarely more than 200 feet high. 
Below us the great drag rope was hissing through 
meadows, roaring over fences, crashing through tree- 
tops. And all night long we were continually ascend- 
ing and descending, sinking into valleys and rising 
over hills, following closely the contours of the local 
topography. 

During the more equable temperature of night the 
[137] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

balloon's height is governed by the drag rope. 
Leaving a range of hills and floating out over a val- 
ley, the weight of the drag rope pulls the balloon 
down until the same length of rope is trailing through 
the valley that had been dragging on the hill. This 
habit of the balloon produces startling effects. 
Drifting swiftly toward a rocky, precipitous hillside 
against which it seems inevitable you must dash to 
your death, suddenly the trailing drag rope reaches 
the lower slopes and you soar like a bird over the hill, 
often so low that the bottom of the basket swishes 
through the tree-tops. 

But, while useful in conserving the balloon's en- 
ergy, the drag rope is a source of constant peril to 
aeronauts, of terror to people on the earth, and of 
damage to property. It has a nasty clinging habit, 
winding round trees or other objects, that may at 
any moment upset basket and aeronauts. On this 
trip our drag rope tore sections out of scores of 
fences, upset many hay stacks, injured horses and 
cattle that tried to run across it, whipped off many 
a chimney, broke telegraph wires, and seemed to take 
malicious delight in working some havoc with every- 
thing it touched. 

At ten o'clock we sighted Cozzen's Hotel, and 
shortly drifted across the parade ground of West 
Point, its huge battlemented gray walls making one 

[138] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

fancy he was looking down into the inner court of 
some great mediaeval castle. Then we drifted out 
over the Hudson toward Cold Spring until, caught by 
a different current, we were swept along the course 
of the river. 

As we sailed over mid-stream and two hundred feet 
above it, with the tall cliffs and mysterious, dark 
recesses of the Highlands on either hand, the waters 
turned to a livid gray under the feeble light of the 
waning moon. No part of our voyage was more im- 
pressive, no scene more awe-inspiring. It was a re- 
gion of such weird lights and gruesome shadows as 
no fancy could people with aught but gaunt goblins 
and dread demons, come down to us through genera- 
tions untold, an unspent legacy of terror, from half- 
savage, superstitious ancestors. 

Suddenly Ford spoke in a low voice : " Boys, I 
was in nine or ten battles of the Civil War, from 
Gaines's Mill to Gettysburg, but in none of them was 
there a scene which impressed me as so terrible as 
this, no situation that seemed to me so threatening 
of irresistible perils." 

Nearing Fishkill at eleven, a land breeze caught 
and whisked us off eastward. At midnight we struck 
the town of Wappinger's Falls — and struck it hard. 
Our visitation is doubtless remembered there yet. 
The town was in darkness and asleep. We were 

[139] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

running low before a stiff breeze, half our drag rope 
on the ground. The rope began to roar across roofs 
and upset chimneys with shrieks and crashes that 
set the folk within believing the end of the world had 
come. Instantly the streets were filled with flying 
white figures and the air with men's curses and 
women's screams. Three shots were fired beneath us. 
Two of our fellows said they heard the whistle of the 
balls, so Donaldson thought it prudent to throw out 
ballast and rise out of range. 

Here the moon left us and we sailed on throughout 
the remainder of the night in utter darkness and 
without any extraordinary incident, all but the watch 
lying idly in the bottom of the basket viewing the 
stars and wondering what new mischief the drag rope 
might be planning. 

The only duty of the watch was to lighten ship 
upon too near descent to the earth, and for this pur- 
pose a handful of Hippodrome circulars usually 
proved sufficient. Indeed, only eight pounds of bal- 
last were used from the time we left Miss Thompson 
till dawn, barring a half-sack spent in getting out 
of range of the Wappinger's Falls sportsmen, who 
seemed to want to bag us. 

Ford and Austin were assigned as the lookout from 
12:00 to S:00, Lyons and myself from 2:00 to 3:00, 
and Donaldson and MacKeever from 3:00 to 4:00. 

[140] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

From midnight till 3 :00 a. m. Donaldson slept as 
peaceful as a baby, curled up in the basket with a 
sand-bag for a pillow. The rest of us slept little 
through the night and talked less, each absorbed in 
the reflections and speculations inspired by our novel 
experience. 

At the approach of dawn we had the most unique 
and extraordinary experience ever given to man. 
The balloon was sailing low in a deep valley. To 
the east of us the Berkshires rose steeply to sum- 
mits probably fifteen hundred feet above us. Be- 
neath us a little village lay, snuggled cosily between 
two small meeting brooks, all dim under the mists of 
early morning and the shadows of the hills. No 
flush of dawn yet lit the sky. Donaldson had been 
consulting his watch. Suddenly he rose and called, 
pointing eastward across the range: 

" Watch, boys ! Look there ! " 

He then quickly dumped overboard half the con- 
tents of a ballast bag. Flying upward like an arrow, 
the balloon soon shot up above the mountain-top, 
when, lo ! a miracle ! The phenomenon of sunrise 
was reversed! We our very selves instead had risen 
on the sun ! There he stood, full and round, peeping 
at us through the trees crowning a distant Berkshire 
hill, as if startled by our temerity. 

Shortly thereafter, when we had descended to our 

[141] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

usual level and were running swiftly before a stiff 
breeze over a rocky hillside, Donaldson yelled : 

" Hang on, boys, for your lives ! " 

The end of the drag rope had gotten a hitch about 
a large tree limb. Luckily Donaldson had seen it 
in time to warn us, else we had there finished our 
careers. We had barely time to seize the stays when 
the rope tautened with a shock that nearly turned 
the basket upside down, spilled out our water-bucket 
and some ballast, left MacKeever and myself hang- 
ing in space by our hands, and the other four on the 
lower side of the basket, scrambling to save them- 
selves. Instantly, of course, the basket righted and 
dropped back beneath us. 

And then began a terrible struggle. 
The pressure of the wind bore us down within a 
hundred feet of the ragged rocks. Groaning under 
the strain, the rope seemed ready to snap. Like a 
huge leviathan trapped in a net, the gas-bag writhed, 
twisted, bulged, shrank, gathered into a ball and 
sprang fiercely out. The loose folds of canvas 
sucked up until half the netting stood empty, and 
then fold after fold darted out and back with all the 
angry menace of a serpent's tongue and with the 
ominous crash of musketry. 

It seemed the canvas must inevitably burst and 
we be dashed to death. But Donaldson was cool 

[142] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

and smiling, and, taking the only precaution possi- 
ble, stood with a sheath-knife ready to cut away the 
drag rope and relieve us of its weight in case our 
canvas burst. 

Happily the struggle was brief. The limb that 
held us snapped, and the balloon sprang forward in 
mighty bounds that threw us off our feet and tossed 
the great drag rope about like a whip-lash. But we 
were free, safe, and our stout vessel soon settled down 
to the velocity of the wind. 

By this time we all were beginning to feel hungry, 
for we had supped the night before in mid-air from 
a lunch basket that held more delicacies than sub- 
stantials. So Donaldson proposed a descent and 
began looking for a likely place. At last he chose 
a little village, which upon near approach we learned 
lay in Columbia County of our own good State. 

We called to two farmers to pull us down, no easy 
task in the rather high wind then blowing. They 
grasped the rope and braced themselves as had others 
the night before, and presently were flying through the 
air in prodigious if ungraceful somersaults. Amazed 
but unhurt, they again seized the rope and got a 
turn about a stout board fence, only to see a section 
or two of the fence fly into the air as if in pursuit 
of us. 

Presently the heat of the rising sun expanded our 

[143] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

gas and sent us up again 2,000 feet, making 
breakfast farther off than ever. Thus, it being clear 
that we must sacrifice either our stomachs or our gas, 
Donaldson held open the safety valve until we were 
once more safely landed on mother earth, but not 
until after we had received a pretty severe pounding 
about, for such a high wind blew that the anchor was 
slow in holding. 

This landing was made at 5 :24 a. m. on the farm 
of John W. Coons near the village of Greenport, four 
miles from Hudson City, and about one hundred and 
thirty miles from New York. 

Here our pilot decided our vessel must be lightened 
of two men, and thus the lot drawn the night before 
compelled us to part, regretfully, with MacKeever of 
the Herald, and Austin of the World. Ford, how- 
ever, owing allegiance to an afternoon paper, the 
Graphic, and always bursting with honest journal- 
istic zeal for a "beat," saw an opportunity to win 
satisfaction greater even than that of keeping on with 
us. So he, too, left us here, with the result that the 
Graphic published a full story of the voyage up to 
this point, Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fifth, 
the Herald and the World trailed along for second 
place in their Sunday editions, while Sun and Tribune 
readers had to wait till Monday morning for such 
" News from the Clouds " as Lyons and I had to give 
them, for wires were not used as freely then as now. 
[144] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

Our departing mates brought us a rare good break- 
fast from Mr. Coons' generous kitchen — a four- 
teen-quart tin pail well-nigh filled with good things, 
among them two currant pies on yellow earthen plates, 
gigantic in size, pale of crust, though anything but 
anaemic of contents. Lyons finished nearly the half 
of one before our reascent, to his sorrow, for scarcely 
were we off the earth before he developed a colic that 
seemed to interest him more, right up to the finish of 
the trip, than the scenery. 

Bidding our mates good-bye, we prepared to re- 
ascend. Many farmers had been about us holding 
to our ropes and leaning on the basket, and later we 
realized we had not taken in sufficient ballast to offset 
the weight of the three men who had left us. 

Released, the balloon sprang upward at a pace 
that all but took our breath away. Instantly the 
earth disappeared beneath us. We saw Donaldson 
pull the safety valve wide open, draw his sheath knife 
ready to cut the drag rope, standing rigid, with his 
eyes riveted upon the aneroid barometer. The hand 
of the barometer was sweeping across the dial at a 
terrific rate. I glanced at Donaldson and saw him 
smile. Then I looked back at the barometer and saw 
the hand had stopped — at 10,200 feet! How long 
we were ascending we did not know. Certain it is 
that the impressions described were all there was time 
for, and that when Donaldson turned and spoke we 
[145] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

saw his lips move but could hear no sound. Our speed 
had been such that the pressure of the air upon the 
tympanum of the ear left us deaf for some minutes. 
We had made a dash of two miles into cloudland and 
had accomplished it, we three firmly believed, in little 
more than a minute ! 

Presently Donaldson observed the anchor and 
grapnel had come up badly clogged with sod, and a 
good heavy tug he and I had of it to pull them in, for 
Lyons was still much too busy with his currant pie 
to help us. Nor indeed were the currant pies yet 
done with us, for at the end of our tug at the anchor 
rope, I found I had been kneeling very precisely in 
the middle of pie No. 2, and had contrived to absorb 
most of it into the knees of my trousers. Thus at 
the end of the day, come to Saratoga after all shops 
were closed, I had to run the gantlet of the porch and 
office crowd of visitors at the United States Hotel 
in a condition that only needed moccasins and a war 
bonnet to make me a tolerable imitation of an Indian. 

We remained aloft at an altitude of one or two 
and one-half miles for three hours and a half, stayed 
there until the silence became intolerable, until the 
buzz of a fly or the croak of a frog would have been 
music to our ears. Here was absolute silence, the 
silence of the grave and death, a silence never to be 
experienced by living man in any terrestrial condition. 

Occasionally the misty clouds in which we hung en- 
[146] 



AN AERIAL BIVOUAC 

shrouded parted beneath us and gave us ghmpses of 
the distant earth, opened and disclosed landscapes of 
infinite beauty set in gray nebulous frames. Once we 
passed above a thunderstorm, saw the lightning play 
beneath us, felt our whole fabric tremble at its shock 
— and were glad enough when we had left it well 
behind. Seen from a great height, the earth looked 
to be a vast expanse of dark green velvet, sometimes 
shaded to a deeper hue by cloudlets floating beneath 
the sun, splashed here with the silver and there with 
the gold garniture reflected from rippling waters. 

Toward noon we descended beneath the region of 
clouds into the realm of light and life, and found our- 
selves hovering above the Mountain House of the Cats- 
kills. And thereabouts we drifted in cross-currents 
until nearly 4:00 p. m., when a heavy southerly gale 
struck us and swept us rapidly northward past 
Albany at a pace faster than I have ever travelled on 
a railway. 

We still had ballast enough left to assure ten or 
twelve hours more travel. But we did not like our 
course. The prospects were that we would end our 
voyage in the wilderness two hundred or more miles 
north of Ottawa. So we rose to 12,500 feet, seeking 
an easterly or westerly current, but without avail. 
We could not escape the southerly gale. Prudence, 
therefore, dictated a landing before nightfall. Land- 
ing in the high gale was both difficult and dan- 
[ 147 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

gerous, and was not accomplished until we were all 
much bruised and scratched in the oak thicket 
Donaldson chose for our descent. 

Thus the first voyage of the good airship Barnum 
ended at 6 :07 p. m. on the farm of E. R. Young, nine 
miles north of Saratoga. 

A year later the Barnum rose for the last time — 
from Chicago — and to this day the fate of the stanch 
craft and her brave captain remains an unsolved 
mystery. 



[148] 



CHAPTER VII 

THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBEE 

LIFE was never dull in Grant County, New 
Mexico, in the early eighties. There was 
always something doing — usually something 
the average law-abiding, peace-loving citizen would 
have been glad enough to dispense with. To say 
that life then and there was insecure is to describe 
altogether too feebly a state of society and an environ- 
ment wherein Death, in one violent form or another, 
was ever abroad, seldom long idle, always alert for 
victims. 

When the San Carlos Apaches, under Victoria, Ju, 
or Geronimo, were not out gunning for the whites, 
the whites were usually out gunning for one another 
over some trivial difference. Everybody carried a 
gun and was more or less handy with it. Indeed, it 
was a downright bad plan to carry one unless you 
were handy. For with gunning — the game most 
played, if not precisely the most popular — every one 
was supposed to be familiar with the rules and to 
know how to play ; and in a game where every hand 
is sure to be " called," no one ever suspected another 
of being out on a sheer "bluff." Thus the coroner 
[149] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

invariably declared it a case of suicide where one man 
drew a gun on another and failed to use it. 

This highly explosive state of society was not due 
to the fact that there were few peaceable men in the 
country, for there were many of them, men of char- 
acter and education, honest, and as law-abiding as 
their peculiar environment would permit. Moreover, 
the percentage of professional "bad men" — and this 
was a profession then — was comparatively small. It 
was due rather to the fact that every one, no matter 
how peaceable his inclinations, was compelled to carry 
arms habitually for self-defence, for the Apaches 
were constantly raiding outside the towns, and white 
outlaws inside. And with any class of men who con- 
stantly carry arms, it always falls out that a weapon 
is the arbiter of even those minor personal differences 
which in the older and more effete civilization of the 
East are settled with fists or in a petty court. 

The prevailing local contempt for any man who 
was too timid to " put up~ a gun fight " when the 
etiquette of a situation demanded it, was expressed 
locally in the phrase that one " could take a corncob 
and a lightning bug and make him run himself to 
death trying to get away." It is clearly unnecessary 
to explain why the few men of this sort in the com- 
munity did not occupy positions of any particular 
prominence. Their opinions did not seem to carry 

[ 150 ] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

as much weight as those of other gentlemen who were 
known to be notably quick to draw and shoot. 

I even recall many instances where the pistol entered 
into the pastimes of the community. One instance 
will stand telling: 

A game of poker (rather a stiff one) had been 
going on for about a fortnight in the Red Light Sa- 
loon. The same group of men, five or six old friends, 
made up the game every day. All had varying suc- 
cess but one, who lost every day. And, come to think 
of it, his luck varied too, for some days he lost more 
than others. While he did not say much about his 
losings, it was observed that his temper was not 
improving. 

This sort of thing went on for thirteen days. The 
thirteenth day the loser happened to come in a little 
late, after the game was started. It also happened 
that on this particular day one of the players had 
brought in a friend, a stranger in the town, to join 
the game. When the loser came in, therefore, he was 
introduced to the stranger and sat down. A hand 
was dealt him. He started to play it, stopped, rapped 
on the table for attention, and said: 

"Boys, I want to make a personal explanation to 
this yere stranger. Stranger, this yere game is sure 
a tight wad for a smoothbore. I'm loser in it, an' a 
heavy one, for exactly thii'teen days, and these 

[151] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

bojs all understand that the first son of a gun I find 
I can beat, I'm going to take a six-shooter an' make 
him play with me a week. Now, if you has no ob- 
jections to my rules, you can draw cards." 

Luckily for the stranger, perhaps, the thirteenth 
day was as bad for the loser as its predecessors. 

Outside the towns there were only three occupa- 
tions in Grant County in those years, cattle ranch- 
ing, mining, and fighting Apaches, all of a sort to 
attract and hold none but the sturdiest types of real 
manhood, men inured to danger and reckless of it. 
In the early eighties no faint-heart came to Grant 
County unless he blundered in — and any such were 
soon burning the shortest trail out. These men were 
never better described in a line than when, years ago, 
at a banquet of California Forty-niners. Joaquin 
Miller, the poet of the Sierras, speaking of the 
splendid types the men of forty-nine represented, 
said: 

" The cowards never started, and all the weak died 
on the road ! " 

Within the towns, also, there were only three oc- 
cupations : first, supplying the cowmen and miners 
whatever they needed, merchandise wet and dry, law 
mundane and spiritual, for although neither court 
nor churches were working overtime, they were avail- 
able for the few who had any use for them ; second, 
gambling, at monte, poker, or faro ; and, third, figur- 
[152] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

ing how to slip through the next twenty-four hours 
without getting a heavier load of lead in one's system 
than could be conveniently carried, or how to stay 
happily half shot and yet avoid coming home on a 
shutter, unhappily shot, or, having an active enemy 
on hand, how best to " get " him. 

Thus, while plainly the occupations of Grant 
County folk were somewhat limited in variety, in the 
matter of interest and excitement their games were 
wide open and the roof off. 

Nor did all the perils to life in Grant County lurk 
within the burnished grooves of a gun barrel, accord- 
ing to certain local points of view, for always it is the 
most unusual that most alarms, as when one of my 
cowboys " allowed he'd go to town for a week," and 
was back on the ranch the evening of the second day. 
Asked why he was back so soon, he replied : 

"Well, fellers, one o' them big depot water tanks 
burnt plumb up this mawnin', an' reckonin' whar 
that 'd happen a feller might ketch fire anywhere in 
them little old town trails, I jes' nachally pulled my 
freight for camp !" 

But a cowboy is the subject of this story — Kit 
Joy. His genus, and striking types of the genus, have 
been so cleverly described, especially by Lewis and by 
Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need 
say little of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's 
most notable and most admirable traits has not 
[153] 



THE BED-BLOODED 

been emphasized so much as it deserves : I mean his 
downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No 
real cowboy ever wilfully insulted any woman, or lost 
a chance to resent any insult offered by another. 
Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never 
broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that 
when one day a cowboy, in a crowded car of a train 
held up by bandits, was appealed to by an Eastern 
lady in the next seat, — 

" Heavens ! I have four hundred dollars in my 
purse which I cannot afford to lose; please, sir, tell 
me how I can hide it." 

Instantly came the answer: 

" Shucks ! miss, stick it in yer sock ; them fellers 
has nerve enough to hold up a train an' kill any feller 
that puts up a fight, but nary one o' them has nerve 
enough to go into a woman's sock after her bank 
roll!" 

Kit Joy was a cowboy working on the X ranch on 
the Gila. He was a youngster little over twenty. It 
was said of him that he had left behind him in Texas 
more or less history not best written in black ink, but 
whether this was true or not I do not know. Certain it 
is that he was a reckless dare-devil, always foremost 
in the little amenities cowboys loved to indulge in 
when they came to town, such as shooting out the 
lights in saloons and generally " shelling up the settle- 
ment," — which meant taking a friendly shot at about 
[154] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

everything that showed up on the streets. Neverthe- 
less, Kit in the main was thoroughly good-natured 
and amiable. 

Early in his career in Silver City it was observed 
that perhaps his most distinguishing trait was cu- 
riosity. Ultimately his curiosity got him into trouble, 
as it does most people who indulge it. His first dis- 
play of curiosity in Silver was a very great surprise, 
even to those who knew him best. It was also a dis- 
appointment. 

A tenderfoot, newly arrived, appeared on the 
streets one day in knickerbockers and stockings. Kit 
was in town and was observed watching the tender- 
foot. To the average cowboy a silk top hat was like 
a red flag to a bull, so much like it in fact that the 
hat was usually lucky to escape with less than half 
a dozen holes through it. But here in these knee- 
breeches and stockings was something much more 
bizarre and exasperating than a top hat, from a cow- 
boy's point of view. The effect on Kit was therefore 
closely watched by the bystanders. 

No one fancied for a moment that Kit would do less 
than undertake to teach the tenderfoot " the cowboy's 
hornpipe," not a particularly graceful but a very 
quick step, which is danced most artistically when a 
bystander is shooting at the dancer's toes. Indeed, 
the ball was expected to open early. To every one's 
surprise and disappointment, it did not. Instead, Kit 
[155] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

dropped in behind the tenderfoot and began to follow 
him about town — followed him for at least an hour. 
Every one thought he was studying up some more 
unique penalty for the tenderfoot. But they were 
wrong, all wrong. 

As a matter of fact, Kit was so far consumed with 
curiosity that he forgot everything else, forgot even 
to be angry. At last, when he could stand it no 
longer, he walked up to the tenderfoot, detained him 
gently by the sleeve, and asked in a tone of real sym- 
pathy and concern : " Say, mistah ! 'Fo' God, 
won't yo' mah let yo' wear long pants?" 

Naturally the tenderfoot's indignation was aroused 
and expressed, but Kit's sympathies for a man con- 
demned to such a juvenile costume were so far stirred 
that he took no notice of it. 

Kit was a typical cowboy, industrious, faithful, un- 
complaining, of the good old Southern Texas breed. 
In the saddle from daylight till dark, riding com- 
pletely down to the last jump in them two or three 
horses a day, it never occurred to him even to growl 
when a stormy night, with thunder and lightning, pro- 
longed his customary three-hours' turn at night guard 
round the herd to an all-night's vigil. He took it as 
a matter of course. And his rope and running iron 
were ever ready, and his weather eye alert for a chance 
to catch and decorate with the X brand any stray 
cattle that ventured within his range. This was a 
[156] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

peculiar phase of cowboy character. While not 
himself profiting a penny by these inroads on neigh- 
boring herds, he was never quite so happy as when 
he had added another maverick to the herd bearing 
his employer's brand, an increase always obtained at 
the expense of some of the neighbors. 

One night on the Spring round-up, the day's work 
finished, supper eaten, the night horses caught and 
saddled, the herd in hand driven into a close circle 
and bedded down for the night in a little glade in the 
hills. Kit was standing first relief. The day's drive 
had been a heavy one, the herd was well grazed and 
watered in the late afternoon, the night was fine ; and 
so the twelve hundred or fifteen hundred cattle in the 
herd were lying down quietly, giving no trouble to the 
night herders. Kit, therefore, was jogging slowly 
round the herd, softly jingling his spurs and humming 
some rude love song of the sultry sort cowboys never 
tire of repeating. The stillness of the night super- 
induced reflection. With naught to interrupt it. Kit's 
curiosity ran farther afield than usual. 

Recently down at Lordsburg, with the outfit ship- 
ping a train-load of beeves, he had seen the Overland 
Express empty its load of passengers for supper, a 
crowd of well-dressed men and women, the latter bril- 
liant with the bright colors cowboys love and with 
glittering gems. To-night he got to thinking about 
them. 

[157] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Wherever did they all come from? How ever did 
they get so much money? Surely they must come 
from 'Frisco. No lesser place could possibly turn 
out such magnificence. Then Kit let his fancy wan- 
der off into crude cowboy visions of what 'Frisco 
might be like, for he had never seen a city. 

*' What a buster of a town 'Frisco must be ! " Kit 
soliloquized. " Must have more'n a hundred saloons 
an' more slick gals than the X brand has heifers. 
What a lot o' fun a feller could have out thar! 
Only I reckon them gals would n't look at him 
more'n about onct unless he was well fixed for dough. 
Reckon they don't drink nothin' but wine out thar, 
nor eat nothin' but oysters. An' wine an' oysters 
costs money, oodles o' money ! That 's the worst of it ! 
S'pose it'd take more'n a month's pay to git a feller 
out thar on the kiars, an' then about three months' 
pay to git to stay a week. Reckon that 's jes' a little 
too rich for Kit's blood. But, jiminy! Wouldn't 
I like to have a good, big, fat bank roll an' go thar ! " 

Here was a crisis suddenly come in Kit's life, 
although he did not then realize it. It is entirely im- 
probable he had ever before felt the want of money. 
His monthly pay of thirty-five dollars enabled him to 
sport a pearl-handled six-shooter and silver-mounted 
bridle bit and spurs, kept him well clothed, and 
gave him an occasional spree in town. What more 
could any reasonable cowboy ask? 
[ 158 ] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

But to-night the very elements and all nature were 
against him. Even a light dash of rain to rouse the 
sleeping herd, or a hungry cow straying out into the 
darkness, would have been sufficient to divert and 
probably save him; but nothing happened. The 
night continued fine. The herd slept on. And Kit 
was thus left an easy prey, since covetousness had 
come to aid curiosity in compassing his ruin. 

"A bank roll! A big, fat, full-grown, long- 
horned, four-year-old roll ! That 's what a feller 
wants to do 'Frisco right. Nothin' less. But whar 's 
it comin' from, an' when.? S'pose I brands a few 
mavericks an' gits a start on my own ? No use, Kit ; 
that 's too slow ! Time you got a proper roll you'd be 
so old the skeeters would n't even bite you, to say 
nothin' of a gal a-kissin' of you. 'Pears like you ain't 
liable to git thar very quick, Kit, 'less you rustles 
mighty peart somewhar. Talkin' of rustlin', what 's 
the matter with that anyway? " 

A cold glitter came in Kit's light blue eyes. The 
muscles of his lean, square jaws worked nervously. 
His right hand dropped caressingly on the handle of 
his pistol. 

" That 's the proper caper. Kit. Why did n't you 
think of it before.'' Rustle, damn you, an', ef you're 
any good, mebbe so you can git to 'Frisco afore frost 
comes, or anywhere else you likes. Rustle ! By jiminy, 
I've got it; I'll jes' stand up that thar Overland Ex- 
[159] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

press. Them fellers what rides on it 's got more'n 
they've got any sort o' use for. What 's the matter 
with makin' 'em whack up with a feller? 'Course 
they'll kick, an' thar'll be a whole passle o' marshals 
an' sheriffs out after you, but what o' that.'' Reckon 
Old Blue '11 carry you out o' range. He 's the longest- 
winded chunk o' horse meat in these parts. Then 
you'll have to stay out strictly on the scout fer a few 
weeks, till they gits tired o' huntin' of you, so you 
can slip out o' this yere neck o' woods 'thout leavin' a 
trail. 

" An' Lord ! but won't it be fun ! 'Bout as much 
fun, I reckon, as doin' 'Frisco. Won't them ten- 
derfeet beller when they hears the guns a-crackin' an' 
the boys a-yellin'! Le's see; wonder who I'd better 
take along?" 

Scruples? Kit had none. Bred and raised a 
merry freebooter on the unbranded spoils of the cat- 
tle range, it was no long step from stealing a mav- 
erick to holding up a train. 

With a man of perhaps any other class, a plan to 
engage in a new business enterprise of so much 
greater magnitude than any of those he had been 
accustomed to would have been made the subject of 
long consideration. Not so with Kit. Cowboy life 
compels a man to think quickly, and often to act 
quicker than he finds it convenient to think. The 
hand skilled to catch the one possible instant when the 
[160] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

wide, circling loop of the lariat may be successfully 
thrown, and the eye and finger trained to accurate 
snap-shooting, do not well go with a mind likely to be 
long in reaching a resolution or slow to execute one. 

So Kit at once began to cast about for two or three 
of the right sort of boys to join liim. Three were 
quickly chosen out of his own and a neighboring outfit. 
They were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cow- 
boys of his own type and temper, and George Cleve- 
land, a negro, known as a desperate fellow, game for 
anything. It needed no great argument to secure 
the co-operation of these men. A mere tip of the lark 
and the loot to be had was enough. The boys saw 
their respective bosses. They " allowed they'd lay 
off for a few days and go to town." So they were 
paid off, slung their Winchesters on their saddles, 
mounted their favorite horses, and rode away. They 
met in Silver City, coming in singly. There they 
purchased a few provisions. Then they separated 
and rode singly out of town, to rendezvous at a cer- 
tain point on the Miembres River. 

The point of attack chosen was the little station of 
Gage (tended by a lone operator), on the Southern 
Pacific Railway west of Deming, a point then reached 
by the west-bound express at twilight. The evening 
of the second day after leaving the Gila, Kit and his 
three compadres rode into Gage. One or two signifi- 
cant passes with a six-shooter hypnotized the station 
[ 161 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

agent into a docile tool. A dim red light glimmered 
away off in the east. As the minutes passed, it grew 
and brightened fast. Then a faint, confused murmur 
came singing over the rails to the ears of the waiting 
bandits. The light brightened and grew until it 
looked like a great dull red sun, and then the thunder 
of the train was heard. 

Time for action had come! 

The agent was made to signal the engineer to stop. 
With lever reversed and air brakes on, the train was 
nearly stopped when the engine reached the station. 
But seeing the agent surrounded by a group of armed 
men, the engineer shut off the air and sought to throw 
his throttle open. His purpose discovered, a quick 
snapshot from Mitch Lee laid him dead, and, spring- 
ing into the cab, Mitch soon persuaded the fireman 
to stop the train- 
Instantly a fusillade of pistol shots and a mad 
chorus of shrill cowboy yells broke out, that ter- 
rorized train crew and passengers into docility. 

Within fifteen minutes the express car was sacked, 
the postal car gutted, the passengers were laid under 
unwilling contribution, and Kit and his pals were rid- 
ing northward into the night, heavily loaded with loot. 
Riding at great speed due north, the party soon 
reached the main travelled road up the Miembres, in 
whose loose shifting sands they knew their trail could 
not be picked up. Still forcing the pace, they reached 
[162] 




By Russell 



Whitehill found a fragment of a Kansas newspaper' 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

the rough hill-country east of Silver early in the night, 
cached their plunder safely, and a little after midnight 
were carelessly bucking a monte game in a Silver 
City saloon. The next afternoon they quietly rode 
out of town and joined their respective outfits, to wait 
until the excitement should blow over. 

Of course the telegraph soon started the hue and 
cry. Officers from Silver, Deming, and Lordsburg 
were soon on the ground, led by Harvey Whitehill, 
the famous old sheriff of Grant County. But of clue 
there was none. Naturally the station agent had 
come safely out of his trance, but with that absence of 
memory of what had happened characteristic of the 
hypnotized. The trail disappeared in the sands of 
the Miembres road. Shrewd old Harvey Whitehill 
was at his wit's end. 

Many days passed in fruitless search. At last, 
riding one day across the plain at some distance from 
the line of flight north from Gage, Whitehill found a 
fragment of a Kansas newspaper. As soon as he 
saw it he remembered that a certain merchant of Silver 
came from the Kansas town where this paper was 
published. Hurrying back to Silver, Whitehill saw 
the merchant, who identified the paper and said that 
he undoubtedly was its only subscriber in Silver. 
Asked if he had given a copy to any one, he finally 
recalled that some time before, about the period of the 
robbery, he had wrapped in a piece of this news- 
[163] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

paper some provisions he had sold to a negro named 
Cleveland and a white man he did not know. 

Here was the clue, and Whitehill was quick to follow 
it. Meeting a negro on the street, he pretended to 
want to hire a cook. The negro had a job. Well, 
did he not know some one else? By the way, where 
was George Cleveland? 

" Oh, boss, he done left de Gila dis week an' gone 
ober to Socorro," was the answer. 

Two days later Whitehill found Cleveland in a So- 
corro restaurant, got the " drop " on him, told him his 
pals were arrested and had confessed that they were 
in the robbery, but that he, Cleveland, had killed En- 
gineer Webster. This brought the whole story. 

'"Foh God, boss, I nebber killed dat engineer. 
Mitch Lee done it, an' him an' Taggart an' Kit Joy, 
dey done lied to you outrageous." 

Within a few days, caught singly, in ignorance of 
Cleveland's arrest, and taken completely by surprise, 
Joy, Taggart, and Lee were captured on the Gila and 
jailed, along with Cleveland, at Silver City, held to 
await the action of the next grand jury. 

But strong walls did not a prison make adequate 
to hold these men. Before many weeks passed, an 
escape was planned and executed. Two other prison- 
ers, one a man wanted in Arizona, and the other a 
Mexican horse-thief, were allowed to participate in 
the outbreak. 

[164] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

Taken unawares, their guard was seized and bound 
with little difficulty. Quickly arming themselves 
in the jail office, these six desperate men dashed out 
of the jail and into a neighboring livery stable, seized 
horses, mounted, and rode madly out of town, firing 
at every one in sight. In Silver in those days no gen- 
tleman's trousers fitted comfortably without a pistol 
stuck in the waistband. Therefore, the flying des- 
peradoes received as hot a fire as they sent. By this 
fire Cleveland's horse was killed before they got out of 
town, but one of his pals stopped and picked him up. 

Instantly the town was in an uproar of excitement. 
Every one knew that the capture of these men meant 
a fight to the death. As usual in such emergencies, 
there were more talkers than fighters. Nevertheless, 
BIX men were in pursuit as soon as they could saddle 
and mount. The first to start was the driver of an 
express wagon, a man named Jackson, who cut his 
horse loose from the traces, mounted bareback, and 
flew out of town only a few hundred yards behind the 
prisoners. Six others, led by Charlie Shannon and 
La Fer, were not far behind Jackson. The men of 
this party were greatly surprised to find that a Boston 
boy of twenty, a tenderfoot lately come to town, who 
had scarcely ever ridden a horse or fired a rifle, was 
among their number, well mounted and armed — a 
man with a line of ancestry worth while, and himself 
a worthy survival of the best of it. 
[165] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

The chase was hot. Jackson was well in advance, 
engaging the fugitives with his pistol, while the fugi- 
tives were returning the fire and throwing up puffs of 
dust all about Jackson. Behind spurred Shannon 
and his party. 

At length the pursuit gained. Five miles out of 
Silver, in the Pinon Hills to the northwest, too close 
pressed to run farther, the fugitives sprang from their 
horses and ran into a low post oak thicket covering 
about two acres, where, crouching, they could not 
be seen. The six pursuers sent back a man to guide 
the sheriff's party and hasten reinforcements, and 
began shelling the thicket and surrounding it. A few 
minutes later Whitehill rode up with seven more men, 
and the thicket was effectually surrounded. To the 
surprise of every one, a hot fire poured into the 
thicket failed to bring a single answering shot. 
Whitehill was no man to waste ammunition on such 
chance firing, so he ordered a charge. His little com- 
mand rode into and through the thicket at full speed, 
only to find their quarry gone, gone all save one. 
The Mexican lay dead, shot through the head ! Kit's 
party had dashed through the thicket without stop- 
ping, on to another, and their trail was shortly found 
leading up a rugged canon of the Pinos Altos Range. 

Whitehill divided his party. Three men followed 
up the bottom of the canon on foot, five mounted 
flankers were thrown out on either side. At last, high 
[166] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

up the canon, Kit's party was found at bay, lying in 
some thick underbrush. It was a desperate position 
to attack, but the pursuers did not hesitate. Dis- 
mounting, they advanced on foot with rifles cocked, 
but with all the caution of a hunter trailing a wounded 
grizzly. The negro opened the ball at barely twenty 
yards' range with a shot that drove a hole through the 
Boston boy's hat. Dropping at first with surprise, 
for he had not seen the negro till the instant he rose 
to fire, the Boston boy returned a quick shot that hap- 
pened to hit the negro just above the centre of the 
forehead and rolled him over dead. 

Approaching from another direction, Shannon was 
first to draw Taggart's fire. Taggart was lying 
hidden in the brush; Shannon standing out in the 
open. Shot after shot they exchanged, until pres- 
ently a ball struck the earth in front of Taggart's 
face and filled his eyes full of gravel and sand. 
Blinded for the time, he called for quarter, and came 
out of the brush with his hands up and another man 
with him. Asked for his pistol, Taggart replied : 

"Damn you, that 's empty, or I'd be shooting yet." 

Meantime, Whitehill was engaging Mitch Lee. In 
a few minutes, shot through and helpless, Lee sur- 
rendered. It was quick, hot work ! 

All but Kit were now killed or captured. He had 
been separated from his party, and La Fer was seen 
trailing him on a neighboring hillside. 
[167] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

At this juncture the sheriff detailed Shannon to 
return to town and get a wagon to bring in the dead 
and wounded, while he started to join La Fer in pur- 
suit of Kit. 

An hour later, as Shannon was leaving town with a 
wagon to return to the scene of the fight, a mob of 
men, led by a shyster lawyer, joined him and swore 
they proposed to lynch the prisoners. This was too 
much for Shannon's sense of frontier proprieties. 
So, rising in his wagon, he made a brief but effective 
speech. 

"Boys, none of our men are hurt, although it is 
no fault of our prisoners. A dozen of us have gone 
out and risked our lives to capture these men. You 
men have not seen fit, for what motives we will not 
discuss, to help us. Now, I tell 3'ou right here that 
any who want can come, but the first man to raise a 
hand against a prisoner I'll kill." 

Shannon's return escort was small. 

But once more back in the hills of the Pinos Altos, 
Shannon found a storm raised he could not quell, 
even if his own sympathies had not drifted with it 
when he learned its cause. His friend La Fer lay 
dead, filled full of buckshot by Kit before Whitehill's 
reinforcements had reached him, while Kit had slipped 
away through the underbrush, over rocks that left no 
trail. 

La Fer's death maddened his friends. There 
[168] 



THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER 

was little discussion. Only one opinion prevailed. 
Taggart and Lee must die. 

Nothing was known of the prisoner wanted in 
Arizona, so he was spared. 

Taggart and Lee were put in the wagon, the for- 
mer tightly bound, the latter helpless from his wound. 
Short rope halters barely five feet long were stripped 
from the horses, knotted round the prisoners' necks, 
and fastened to the limb of a juniper tree. Taggart 
climbed to the high wagon seat, took a header and 
broke his neck. The wagon was then pulled away 
and Lee strangled. 

With Cleveland, Lee, and Taggart dead. Engineer 
Webster and La Fer were fairly well avenged. But 
Kit was still out, known as the leader and the man 
who shot La Fer, and for days the hills were full of 
men hunting him. Hiding in the rugged, thickly tim- 
bered hills of the Gila, taking needed food at night, 
at the muzzle of his gun, from some isolated ranch, he 
was hard to capture. 

Had Kit chosen to mount himself and ride out of 
the country, he might have escaped for good. But 
this he would not do. Dominated still by the fatal 
curiosity and covetousness that first possessed him, 
later mastered him, and then drove him into crime, 
bound to repossess himself of his hidden treasure and 
go out to see the world. Kit would not leave the Gila. 
He was alone, unaided, with no man left his friend, 
[169] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

with all men on the alert to capture or to kill him, 
the unequal contest nevertheless lasted for many 
weeks. 

There was only one man Kit at all trusted, a 
"nester" (small ranchman) named Racketty Smith. 
One day, looking out from a leafy thicket in which he 
lay hid. Kit saw Racketty going along the road. A 
lonely outcast, craving the sound of a human voice, 
believing Racketty at least neutral, Kit hailed him 
and approached. As he drew near, Racketty covered 
him with his rifle and ordered him to surrender. Sur- 
prised, taken entirely unawares, Kit started to jump 
for cover, when Racketty fired, shattered his right leg 
and brought him to earth. To spring upon and dis- 
arm Kit was the work of an instant. 

Kit was sentenced to imprisonment at Sante Fe. A 
few years ago, having gained three years by good 
behavior. Kit was released, after having served four- 
teen years. 

However Kit may still hanker for " a big, fat, four- 
year-old, long-horned bank roll," and whatever may 
be his curiosity to " do 'Frisco proper," it is not 
likely he will make any more history as a train robber, 
for at heart Kit was always a better " good man " 
than "bad man." 



[170] 



CHAPTER VIII 

CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

COWBOYS were seldom respecters of the feel- 
ings of their fellows. Few topics were so 
sacred or incidents so grave they were not 
made the subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life 
of such stirring adventure that few days passed with- 
out some more or less serious mishap, reckless of life, 
unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the 
smallest trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects 
of chaff and badinage till the next diverting occur- 
rence. But to the Cross Canon outfit Mat Barlow's 
love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright 
worship, an all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a 
way, and all unknown to her, she became the nearest 
thing to a religion the Cross Canonites ever had. 

Eight years before Mat had come among them a 
green tenderfoot from a South Missouri village, 
picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the foreman, 
on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested 
workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. 
Mat took to range work like a duck to water. Within 
a year he could rope and tie a mossback with the best, 
and in scraps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raid- 
[171] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ers had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the 
oldest and toughest trigger-twitcher of the lot. 

But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, 
none of the outfit were ever able to induce Mat to 
pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the details 
incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old 
past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deport- 
ment, expert light shooters, monte players, dance-hall 
beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye riot-starters la- 
bored faithfully with Mat, but all to no purpose. To 
town with them he went, but with them in their de- 
bauches he never joined; indeed as a rule he even re- 
fused to discuss such incidents with them academically. 
Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the 
outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean 
as his conduct. 

Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely 
studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was 
trained upon him, for some time without result. He 
was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Canon. 
At first he was suspected of religious scruples and 
nicknamed "Circuit Rider." But presently it be- 
came apparent that he owned ability and will to curse 
a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air 
felt chill, and it became plain he feared God as little 
as man. Mat had joined the outfit in the Autumn, 
when for several weeks it was on the jump ; first gath- 
ering and shipping beeves, then branding calves, 
[172] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

lastly moving the herd down to its Winter range on 
the San Juan. Throughout this period Cross 
Canon's puzzle remained hopeless ; but the very first 
evening after the outfit went into Winter quarters at 
the home ranch, the puzzle was solved. 

Ranch mails were always small, no matter how in- 
frequent their coming or how large the outfit. The 
owners' business involved little correspondence, the 
boys' sentiments inspired less. Few with close home- 
ties exiled themselves on the range. Many were " on 
the scout" from the scene of some remote shooting 
scrape and known by no other than a nickname. For 
most of them such was the rarity of letters that often 
have I seen a cowboy turning and studying an un- 
opened envelope for a half-day or more, wondering 
whoever it was from and guessing whatever its con- 
tents could be. Thus it was one of the great sensa- 
tions of the season for McTigh and his red-sashers, 
when the ranch cook produced five letters for Circuit 
Rider, all addressed in the same neat feminine hand, 
all bearing the same post mark. And when, while the 
rest were washing for supper, disposing of war sacks, 
or "making down" blankets. Mat squatted in the 
chimney corner to read his letters, Lee Skeats impres- 
sively whispered to Priest: 

"Ben, I jest nachally hope never to cock another 
gun ef that thar little ol' Circuit hain't got a gal 
that 's stuck to him tightcr'n a tick makin' a gotch 
[173] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ear, or that ain't got airy damn thing to do to hum 
but write letters. Size o' them five he 's got must 'a 
kept her settin' up nights to make 'em ever since Cir- 
cuit jumped the hum reservation. Did you ever hear 
of a feller gettin' five letters from a gal to wonst.'' " 

" I shore never did," answered Ben ; " Circuit 
must 'a been 'prentice to some big Medicine Man back 
among his tribe and have a bagful o' hoodoos hid out 
somewhere. He ain't so damn hi jus to look at, but 
he shore never knocked no gal plum loco that away 
with his p'rsn'l beauty. Must be some sort o' Injun 
medicine he works." 

** Cain't be from his mother," cogitated Lee. 
" Writin' ain't trembly none — looks like it was writ 
by a school-marm, an' a lally-cooler at that. Cir- 
cuit will have to git one o' them pianer-like writin' 
makers and keep poundin' it on the back till it hollers, 
ef he allows to lope close up in that gal's writin' class. 

"Lord! but won't thar be fun for us all Winter 
he'pin' him 'tend to his correspondence ! 

"Let 's you an' me slip round and tip off the outfit 
to shet up till after supper, an' then all be ready with 
a hot line o' useful hints 'bout his answerin' her." 

Ben joyously fell in with Lee's plan. The tips 
were quickly passed round. But none of the hints 
were ever given, not a single one. A facer lay ahead 
of them beside which the mere receipt of the five let- 
ters was nothing. To be sure, tlie letters were the 

[m] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

greatest sensation the outfit had enjoyed since they 
stood off successfully two troops of U. S. Cavalry, 
come to arrest them for killing twenty marauding 
Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an 
astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, 
stirred sentiments long dormant, and ultimately, in a 
measure, tuned their own heart-strings into chord 
with the sweet melody ringing over Circuit's own. 

Supper was called, and upon it the outfit fell — all 
but Circuit. They attacked it wolf-fashion accord- 
ing to their habit, bolting the steaming food in a 
silence absolute but for the crunching of jaws and the 
shrill hiss of sipped coffee. The meal was half over 
before Circuit, the last letter finished, tucked his five 
treasures inside his shirt, stepped over the bench to a 
vacant place at the table, and hastily swallowed a 
light meal ; in fact he rose while the rest were still busy 
gorging themselves. And before Lee or the others 
were ready to launch at Circuit any shafts of their 
rude wit, his manoeuvres struck them dumb with 
curiosity. 

Having hurried from the table direct to his bunk. 
Circuit was observed delving in the depths of his war 
sack, out of which he produced a set of clean under- 
clothing, complete from shirt to socks, and a razor. 
Beside these he carefully laid out his best suit of store 
clothes, and from beneath the " heading " of the bunk 
he pulled a new pair of boots. All this was done with 
[175] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

a rapidity and method that evinced some set purpose 
which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become 
the more puzzling when, five minutes later. Circuit re- 
turned from the kitchen bearing the cook's wash-tub 
and a pail of warm water. The tub he deposited and 
filled in an obscure comer of the bunk-room, and 
shortly thereafter was stripped to the buff, labori- 
ously bathing himself. The bath finished, Circuit 
carefully shaved, combed his hair, and dressed him- 
self in his cleanest and best. 

While he was dressing. Bill Ball caught breath 
enough to whisper to Lee : " By cripes ! I've got it. 
Circuit 's got a hunch some feller 's tryin' to rope an' 
hobble his gal, an' he 's goin' to ask Tom for his time, 
fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll 
take him to whatever little ol' humanyville his gal 
lives at." 

"Lope hell," answered Lee ; " it 's a run he 's goin' 
to hit, with one spur in the shoulder an' th' other in 
th' flank. AVhy, th' way he 's throwin' that whisker- 
cutter at his face, he 's plumb shore to dewlap and 
wattle his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd 
o' humans as fer as you could see him." 

But Bill's guess proved wide of the mark. 

As soon as Circuit's dressing was finished and he 

had received assurance from the angular fragment of 

mirror nailed above the wash-basin that his hair was 

smoothly combed and a new neckerchief neatly knot- 

[176] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

ted, he produced paper and an envelope from his war 
sack, seated himself at the end of the long dinner- 
table, farthest from the fireplace, lighted a fresh 
candle, spread out his five treasures, carefully sharp- 
ened a stub pencil, and duly set its lead end a-soak 
in his mouth, preparatory to the composition of a 
letter. The surprise was complete. Such pains- 
taking preparation and elaborate costuming for the 
mere writing of a letter none pi'esent — or absent, for 
that matter — had ever heard of. But it was all so 
obviously eloquent of a most tender respect for his 
correspondent that boisterous voices were hushed, 
and for at least a quarter of an hour the Cross Canon- 
ites sat covertly watching the puckered brows, drawn 
mouth, and awkwardly crawling pencil of the writer. 

Presently Lee gently nudged Ball and passed a 
wink to the rest ; then all rose and softly tiptoed their 
way to the kitchen. 

Comfoi-tably squatted on his heels before the cook's 
fireplace, Lee quietly observed : " Fellers, I allow it 's 
up to us to hold a inquest on th' remains o' my idee 
about stringin' Circuit over that thar gal o' his'n. I 
moves that th' idee 's done died a-bornin', an' that we 
bury her. All that agrees, say so; any agin it, say 
so, 'n' then git their guns an' come outside." 

There were no dissenting votes, Lee's motion was 
unanimously carried. 

" Lee 's plumb right," whispered McTigh ; " that 
[ 177 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

kid 's got it harder an' worse than airy feller I ever 
heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in stringin' him 
'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no 
good one; been alius like a old buffalo bull whipped 
out o' th' herd, sorta flockin' by my lonesome, an' — 
an' — " with a husky catch of the voice, " an' that thar 
kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a hell of a lot hit 
'pears to me I would n't have no great trouble gittin' 
to like." 

Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen. 

Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in 
surprised inquiry at the semicircle of grim bronzed 
faces, now dimly lit by the flickering embers and then 
for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a 
cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situa- 
tion was tense. In each man emotions long dormant, 
or perhaps by some never before experienced, were 
tumultuously surging ; surging the more tumultuously 
for their long dormancy or first recognition. Pres- 
ently in a low, hoarse voice that scarcely carried 
round the semicircle, Chillili Jim spoke : 

"Fellers, Circuit shore 'minds me pow'ful strong 
o' my ol' mammy. She was monstrous lovin' to we- 
uns ; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up my ol' pa 
when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's 
Rangers, with his ol' carcass 'bout as full o' rents an' 
holes as his ragged gray war clothes ! Alius have 
tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me like 
[178] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her 
into th' home ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer 
keeps." 

" 'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six- 
year-old," mused Mancos Mitch; "when Circuit's 
pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns got 
so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in 
th' little ol' meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on 
th' banks o' th' Leona in ol' Uvalde County. Th' air 
got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion alius 'pears to 
give to meetin'-houses, an' I could hear the' ol' pa'son 
a-tellin' us how it 's th' lovinest that alius gits th' 
longest end o' th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther 
ol' sky scout was 'bout right. Feller cain't possibly 
keep busy all th' love in his system, workin' it off on 
nothin' but a pet hoss or gun ; thar 's alius a hell of a 
lot you did n't know you had comes oozin' out when 
a proper piece o' calico lets you next." 

" Boys," cut in Bill Ball, the dean of the outfit's 
shooters-up of town and shooters-out of dance-hall 
lights; "boys, I allow it's up to me to 'pologize to 
Circuit. Ef I was n't such a damned o'nery kiyote 
I'd o' caught on befo'. But I hain't been runnin' with 
th' drags o' th' she herd so long that I can't 'preciate 
th' feelin's o' a feller that 's got a good gal stuck on 
him, like Circuit. Ef I had one, you-all kin gamble 
yer alee all bets would be off with them painted dance- 
hall beer jerkers, an' it would be out in th' brush fo' 
[179] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

me while th' corks was poppin', gals cussin', red-eye 
flowin', an' chips rattlin'. That thar little ol' kid has 
my 'spects, an' ef airy o' th' Blue Mountain outfit 
tries to string him 'bout not runnin' with them oreide 
propositions, I 'II hand 'em lead till my belt 's empty." 

Ensued a long silence ; at length, by common con- 
sent the inquest was adjourned, and the members of 
the jury returned to the bunk-room, quiet and solemn 
as men entering a death chamber. There at the table 
before the guttering candle still sat Circuit, his hair 
now badly tousled, his upper lip blackened with pencil 
lead, his brows more deeply puckered, his entire under- 
lip apparently swallowed, the table littered with rude- 
ly scrawled sheets. 

Slipping softly to their respective bunks, the boys 
peeled and climbed into their blankets. And there 
they all lay, wide-awake but silent, for an hour or 
two, some watching Circuit curiously, some enviously, 
others staring fixedly into the dying fire until from 
its dull-glowing embers there rose for some visions of 
bare-footed, nut-brown, fustian-clad maids, and for 
others the finer lines of silk and lace draped figures, 
now long since passed forever out of their lives. 
Those longest awake were privileged to witness Cir- 
cuit's final offering at the shrine of his love. 

His letter finished, enclosed, addressed, and 
stamped, he kissed it and laid it aside, apparently all 
unconscious of the presence of his mates, as he had 
[180 1 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

been since beginning his letter. Then he drew from 
beneath his shirt something none of them had seen 
before, a buckskin bag, out of which he pulled a fat 
blank memorandum book, into which he proceeded to 
copy, in as small a hand as he could write, every 
line of his sweethearfs letters. Later they learned 
that this bag and its contents never left Circuit's 
body, nestled always over his heart, suspended by a 
buckskin thong ! 

Out of the close intimacies cow-camp life promotes, 
it was not long before the well-nigh overmastering 
curiosity of the outfit was satisfied. They learned 
how the " little ol' blue-eyed sorrel top," as Bill Ball 
had christened her, had vowed to wait faithfully till 
Circuit could earn and save enough to make them a 
home, and how Circuit had sworn to look into no 
woman's eyes till he could again look into hers. Be- 
fore many months had passed, Circuit's regular week- 
ly letter to Netty — regular when on the ranch — 
and the ceremonial purification and personal decking 
that preceded it, had become for the Cross Canon 
outfit a public ceremony all studiously observed. 
None were ever too tired, none too grumpy, to wash, 
shave, and "slick up" of letter nights, scrupulously 
as Moslems bathe their feet before approaching the 
shrine of Mahomet; and still as Moslems before their 
shrine all sat about the bunk-room while Circuit wrote 
his letter and copied Netty's last. Indeed, more than 
[181] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

one well-started wild town orgy was stopped short by 
one of the boys remarking: "Cut it, you kiyotes! 
Netty would n't like it ! " 

And thus the months rolled on till they stacked up 
into years, but the interchange of letters never ceased 
and the burden of Circuit's buckskin bag grew heavier. 

Twice Circuit ventured a financial coup, and both 
times lost — invested his savings in horses, losing one 
band to Arizona rustlers, and the other to Mancos 
Jim's Pah-Utes. After the last experience he took 
no further chances and settled down to the slow but 
sure plan of hoarding his wages. 

Come the Fall of the eighth year of his exile from 
Netty, Circuit had accumulated two thousand dollars, 
and it was unanimously voted by the Cross Canon out- 
fit, gathered in solemn conclave at Circuit's request, 
that he might venture to return to claim her. And be- 
fore the conclave was adjourned, Lee Skeats, the 
chairman, remarked : " Circuit, ef Netty shows airy 
sign o' balkin' at th' size o' your bank roll, you kin 
jes' tell her that thar 's a bunch out here in Cross 
Canon that 's been lovin' her sort o' by proxy, 
that '11 chip into your matrimonial play, plumb 
double the size o' your stack, jest fo' th' bono' o' 
meetin' up wi' her an' th' pleasure o' seein' their 
pardner hitched." 

The season's work done and the herd turned loose 
on its Winter range on the San Juan, the outfit de- 
[182] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

cided to escort Circuit into Mancos and there cele- 
brate his coming nuptials. For thcni the one hundred 
and seventy intervening miles of alternating canon 
and mesa, much of the journey over trails deadly 
dangerous for any creature less sure-footed than a 
goat, was no more than a pleasant pasear. Thus it 
was barely high noon of the third day when the thirty 
Cross Canonites reached their destination. 

Deep down in a mighty gorge, nestled beside the 
stream that gave its name alike to canon and to town, 
Mancos stewed contentedly in a temperature that 
would try the strength and temper of any unaccus- 
tomed to the climate of southwestern Colorado. 
Framed in Franciscan-gray sage brush, itself gray as 
the sage with the dust of pounding hoofs and rushing 
whirlwinds, at a little distance Mancos looked like 
an aggregation of dead ash heaps, save where, here 
and there, dabs of faded paint lent a semblance of 
patches of dying embers. 

While raw, uninviting, and even, melancholy in its 
every aspect, for the scattered denizens of a vast re- 
gion round about Mancos's principal street was the 
local Great White Way that furnished all the fun and 
frolic most of them ever knew. To it flocked miners 
from their dusky, pine-clad gorges in the north, 
grangers from the then new farming settlement in the 
Montezuma Valley, cowboys from Blue Mountain, the 
Dolores, and the San Juan; Navajos from Chillili, 
[183] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Utes from their reservation — a motley lot burn- 
ing with untamed elemental passions that called for 
pleasure " straight." 

Joyously descending upon the town at a breakneck 
lope before a following high wind that completely 
shrouded them in clouds of dust, it was not until they 
pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the 
outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the 
reddest red-letter day of its existence, the day of its 
first visitation by a circus — and also its last for 
many a year thereafter. 

In the eighties Mancos was forty miles from the 
nearest railway, but news of the reckless extrava- 
gances of its visiting miners and cowboys tempted 
Fells Brothers' "Greatest Aggregation on Earth of 
Ring Artists and Monsters " to visit it. Dusted and 
costumed outside of town, down the main street of 
Mancos the circus bravely paraded that morning, its 
red enameled paint and gilt, its many-tinted tights and 
spangles, making a perfect riot of brilliant colors over 
the prevailing dull gray of valley and town. 

Streets, stores, saloons, and dance halls were 
swarming with the outpouring of the ranches and the 
mines, men who drank abundantly but in the main a 
rollicking, good-natured lot. 

While the Cross Canonites were liquoring at the 
Fashion Bar (Circuit drinking sarsaparilla), Lame 
Jolmy, the barkeeper, remarked : " You-uns missed 
[184] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

it a lot, not seein' the pr'cesh. She were a ring-tailed 
tooter for fair, with the damnedest biggest noise- 
makin' band you ever heard, an' th' p'rformers wear- 
in' more pr'tys than I ever allowed was made. An' 
say, they've got a gal in th' bunch, rider I reckon, 
that 's jest that damned good to look at it hurts. 
Damned ef I kin git her outen my eyes yet. Say, 
she 's shore prittier than airy red wagon in th' show 
— built like a quarter horse, got eyes like a doe, and 
a sorrel mane she could hide in. She 's sure a chile 
con came proposition, if I ever see one." 

" Huh ! " grunted Lee ; " may be a good-looker, but 
I'll gamble she ain't in it with our Sorrel-top; hey, 
boys.'^ Here 's to our Sorrel-top, fellers, an' th' day 
Circuit prances into Mancos wi' her." 

Several who tried to drink and cheer at the same 
time lost much of their liquor but none of their en- 
thusiasm. After dinner at Charpiot's, a wretched 
counterfeit of the splendid old Denver restaurant of 
that name, the Cross Canonites joined the throng 
streaming toward the circus. 

For his sobriety designated treasurer of the outfit 
for the day and night. Circuit marched up to the ticket 
wagon, passed in a hundred dollar bill and asked for 
thirty tickets. The tickets and change were promptly 
handed him. On the first count the change appeared 
to be correct, but on a recount Circuit found the 
ticket-seller had cunningly folded one twenty double, 
[ 185 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

so that it appeared as two bills instead of one. Turn- 
ing immediately to the ticket-seller, Circuit showed 
the deception and demanded correction. 

" Change was right ; you can't dope and roll me ; 
gwan ! " growled the ticket-agent. 

"But it 's plumb wrong, an' you can't rob me none, 
you kiyote," answered Circuit ; " hand out another 
twenty, and do it sudden ! " 

" Chase yourself to hell, you bow-legged hold-up," 
threatened the ticket-seller. 

When, a moment later, the ticket man plunged out 
of the door of his wagon wildly yelling for his clan, it 
was with eyes flooding with blood from a gash in his 
forehead due to a resentful tap from the barrel of Cir- 
cuit's gun. 

Almost in an instant pandemonium reigned and 
a massacre was imminent. Stalwart convasmen 
rushed to their chief's call till Circuit's bunch were out- 
numbered three to one by tough trained battlers on 
many a tented field, armed with hand weapons of all 
sorts. Victors these men usually were over the town 
roughs it was customarily theirs to handle ; but here 
before them was a bunch not to be trifled with, a 
quiet group of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning 
with the anticipated joy of the combat they loved, 
some grim as death itself, each affectionately twirling 
a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the 
circus men, and down they would go like ninepins, 
[186] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

and they knew it — knew it so well that, within two 
minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and 
lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like rabbits 
darting into their warrens. 

"Mighty pore 'pology for real men, them ele- 
phant busters," disgustedly observed Bill Ball. 
" Come on, fellers, le's go in." 

"Nix for me," spoke up Circuit; "I'm that hot 
in the collar over him tryin' to rob me I've got no use 
for their old show. You-all go in, an' I'll go down to 
Chapps' and fix my traps to hit the trail for the rail- 
road in the mornin'." 

On the crest of a jutting bastion of the lofty es- 
carpment that formed the west wall of the canon, the 
sun lingered for a good-night kiss of the eastern cliffs 
which it loved to paint every evening with all the bril- 
liant colors of the spectrum ; it lingered over loving 
memories of ancient days when every niche of the 
Mancos cliffs held its little bronze-hued line of primi- 
tive worshippers, old and young, devout, prostrate, 
fearful of their Red God's nightly absences, suppliant 
of his return and continued largess ; over memories of 
ceremonials and pastimes barbaric in their elemental 
violence, but none more primitively savage than the 
new moon looked down upon an hour later. 

Supper over, on motion of Lee Skeats the Cross 
Canonites had adjourned to the feed corral and gone 
into executive session. 

[187] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Lee called the meeting to order. 

"Fellers," he said, "that dod-burned show makes 
my back tired. A few geezers an' gals flipfloopin' 
in swings an' a bunch o' dead ones on ol' broad-backed 
work bosses that calls theirsclves riders ! Shucks ! 
thar hain't one o' th' lot could sit a real twister long 
enough to git liis seat wann; about th' second jump 
would have 'em clawin' sand. 

"Only thing in their hull circus wo'th lookin' 
at is that red-maned gal, an' she looks that sweet an' 
innercent she don't 'pear to rightl}- belong in that 
thar bare-legged bunch o' she dido-cutters. They-all 
must 'a mavcricked her recent. Looks like a pr'ty 
ripe red apple among a lot o' rotten ones. 

" Hated like hell to see her thar, specially with next 
to nothin* on, fer somehow I could n't help her 'mind- 
in' mc o' our Sorrel-top. Reckon of we busted up their 
damn show, that gal'd git to staj' a while in a decent 
woman's sort o' clothes. What say, shall we bust 
her?" 

" Fer one, I sits in an' draw cards in your play 
cheerful," promptly responded Bill Ball ; " kind o' 
hurt me too to see Reddy thar. An' then them ani- 
miles hain't gittin' no squar' deal. Never did believe 
in cagin' animiles more'n men. Ef they need it bad, 
kill 'em : ef they don't, give 'm a run fo' their money, 
way ol' Mahstor meant 'em to have when He made *om. 
Le's all saddle up, ride down thar, tie onto their tents, 
[188] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

an' pull 'em down, an' then bust open them cages an' 
give every dod-blamed anlmile th' liberty I allows he 
loves same as humans ! An' then, jest to make sure 
she 's a good job, le's whoop all their bosses ove' to 
tlv Dolores an' scatter 'em through th' pinons ! " 

Bill's motion was unanimously carried, even Cir- 
cuit cheerfully consenting, from memories of the out- 
rage attempted upon him earlier in the day. Ten 
minutes later the outfit charged down upon the cir- 
cus at top speed, arriving among the first comers for 
the evening performance. Flaming oil torches lit the 
scene, making it bright almost as day. 

By united action, thirty lariats were quickly looped 
round guy ropes and snubbed to saddle horns, and 
then, incited by simultaneous spur digs and yells, 
thirty fractious broncos bounded away from the tent, 
fetching it down in sheets and ribbons, ropes popping 
like pistols, the rent canvas shrieking like a creature 
in pain, startled animals threshing about their cages 
and crj'ing their alarm. Cowboys were never slow 
at anything they undertook. In three minutes more 
the side shows were tentless, the dwarfs trying to 
swarm up the giant's sturdy legs to safety or to hide 
among the adipose wrinkles of the fat lady, and the 
outfit tackled the cages. 

In another three minutes the elephant, with a so- 
ciable shot through his off ear to make sure he should 
not tarry, was thundering down Mancos's main street, 
[189] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

trumpeting at every jump, followed by the lion, the 
great tuft of hair at the end of his tail converted, by 
a happy thought of Lee Skeats, into a brightly blaz- 
ing torch that, so long as the fuel lasted, lighted the 
sliortost cut to freedom for his escaping mates — for 
the lion hit as close a bee-line as possible trying to 
outrun his own tail. For the outfit, it was the lark of 
their lives. Crashing pistol shots and ringing yells 
bore practical testimony to their joy. But they were 
not to have it entirely' their own way. 

Just as tlio^' were all balled up before the rlii- 
noceros, staggered a bit by his great bulk and 
tlireatening horn, out upon them charged a body of 
canvasmcn, all the manager could contrive to rally, 
for a desperate effort to stop the damage and avenge 
the outrage. In tJieir lead ran the ticket-seller, anned 
with a pistol and keen for evening up things with the 
man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. 
Circuit did not see him, but Lee did ; and thus in the 
very instant Circuit staggered and dropped to 
the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit pitched the 
ticket man witli a ball tlirough his head. Then for 
two minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand 
battle raged, cowboy skulls cruncliing beneatli fierce 
blows, circus men falling like autumn leaves before the 
cowboys* fire. And so the fight might have lasted till 
all were down but for a startling diversion. 

Suddenly', just as Circuit had struggled to his feet, 
[ 190 ] 




Out spraiiy; ;i dainty (ijiure in tulle and tights, and tired at 
the nearest of the connnon enemy" 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANGOS 

out from among the wrecked wagons sprang a dainty 
figure in tulle and tights, masses of hair red as the 
blood of the battlers streaming in waves behind her, 
and fired at the nearest of the common enemy, which 
happened to be poor Circuit. Swaying for a moment 
with the shock of the wound, down to the ground he 
settled like an empty sack, falling across the legs of 
the ticket-seller. 

Startled and shocked, it seemed, by the con- 
sequences of her deed, the woman approached and for 
a moment gazed down, horror-stricken, into Circuit's 
face. Then suddenly, with a shriek of agony, she 
dropped beside him, drew his head into her lap, wiped 
the gathering foam from his lips, fondled and kissed 
him. Ripping his shirt open at the neck to find his 
wound, she uncovered Circuit's buckskin bag and 
memorandum book, showing through its centre the 
track of a bullet that had finally spent itself in frac- 
turing a rib over Circuit's heart, the ticket-seller's 
shot, that would have killed him instantly but for the 
shielding bulk Netty's treasured letters interposed. 
Moved, perhaps, by some subtle instinctive suspicion 
of its contents, she glanced within the book, started to 
remove it from Circuit's neck, and then gently laid it 
back above the heart it so long had lain next and so 
lately had shielded. 

Meantime about this little group gathered such of 
the Cross Cafionites as were still upon their legs, while, 
[191] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

glad of the diversion, their enemies hurriedly with- 
drew; round about the outfit stood, their fingers still 
clutching smoking guns, but pale and sobered. 

Circuit lay with eyes closed, feebly gasping for 
breath, and just as the girl's nervous fingers further 
rent his shirt and exposed the mortal wound through 
the right lung made by her own tiny pistol, Circuit 
half rose on one elbow and whispered : " Boys, write 
— write Netty I was tryin' to git to her." 

And then he fell back and lay still. 

For five minutes, perhaps, the girl crouched silent 
over the body, gazing wide-eyed into the dead face, 
stunned, every faculty paralyzed. 

Presently Lee softly spoke : 

"Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did 
Mat a good turn killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 
'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in this bunch; hurts 
us 'bout enough, I reckon." 

Roused from contemplation of her dead, the girl 
rose to her knees, still clinging to Circuit's stiffening 
fingers, and sobbingly murmured, in a voice so low 
the awed group had to bend to hear her : 

" Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall 
thank God Mat never knew. This is my husband ly- 
ing dead beneath Mat. They made me do it — my 
family — nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich 
horse-breeder of our county, till home was such a hell 
I could n't stand it. It was four long years ago, and 
[ 192 ] 



CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS 

never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the 
truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they 
breathed a love I little have deserved." 

"Reckon that's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill 
Ball; "hain't a bit shore myself airy critter that ever 
stood up in petticoats deserved a love big as Circuit's. 
Excuse us, please." 

And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted 
the body and bore it away into the town. 

In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to 
be the twenty-second anniversary of Circuit's death, 
two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling slowly out of 
Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a 
comer of the burying ground and stopped. There 
within, hard by, a woman bent and gnarled and gray 
as the sage-brush about her, was tenderly decking a 
grave with pinon wreaths. 

" Hope to never cock another gun. Bill Ball, ef she 
ain't thar ag'in!" 

" She shore is, Lee," answered Bill ; " provin' we-all 
mislaid no bets reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to 
a little ranch and brand." 

Thus, happily, does time sweeten the bitterest 
memories. 



[193] 



CHAPTER IX 

ACROSS THE BORDER 

YES, there he was, just ahead of me on the plat- 
form of the Union Depot in Kansas City, my 
partner, James Terry Gardiner, who had 
weired me to meet him there a few weeks after I had 
closed the sale of our Deadman Ranch, in November, 
1882. While his back was turned to me, there was 
no mistaking the lean but sturdy figure and alert 
step. 

From the vigorous slap of cordiality I gave him 
on the shoulder, he winced and shrank, crying : " Oh, 
please don't, old man. Been sleeping in Mexican 
northers for a fortnight, and it 's got my shoulder 
muscles tied in rheumatic knots. Don Nemecio Gar- 
cia started me off from Lampasos with the assurance 
that my ambulance was generously provisioned and 
provided with his own camp-bed, but when night of 
the first day's journey came, I found the food limited 
to tortillas, chorisos, and coffee, and the bed a sheep- 
skin — no more. Stupid of an old campaigner not to 
investigate his equipment before starting, was it 
not.?" 

"Worse than that, I should say — sheer madness," 
I answered. " How did it happen ? " 
[194] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

"Well, you see, Don Nemecio is the Alcalde of his 
city, and he showered me with such grandiloquent 
Spanish phrases of concern for my comfort that I 
fancied he had outfitted me in extraordinary luxury. 

"But that's over now, thank goodness. And now 
to business. 

" In the north of the State of Coahuila, one hundred 
miles west of the Rio Grande border, lies the little 
town called Villa de Musquiz. To the north and 
west of it for two hundred miles stretches the great 
plain the natives call El DestertOy known on the map 
as Bolson de Mapimi, the resort of none but bandits, 
smuggler Lipans, and Mescaleros. Into it the na- 
tives never venture, and little of it is known except the 
scant information brought back by scouting cavalry 
details. 

"Just south of the town lie the Cedral Coal Mines 
I have been examining — but that is neither here nor 
there. What I want to know is, are you game for a 
new ranch deal ? " 

When I nodded an affirmative, he continued: 

"Well, immediately north of the town lies a tract 
of 250,000 acres in the fork of the Rio Sabinas and 
the Rio Alamo, which is the greatest ranch bargain 
I ever saw. Heavily grassed, abundantly watered 
by its two boundary streams, the valleys thickly tim- 
bered with Cottonwood, the plains dotted with mes- 
quite and live oak, in a perfect climate, it is an ideal 
[195] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

breeding range. And it can be bought, for what, do 
you think? Fifty thousand Mexican dollars [29,- 
000 gold] for a quarter of a million acres ! Go bag 
it, and together we'll stock it. 

"Of course you'll run some rather heavy risks — 
else the place would not be going so cheap — but no 
more than you have been taking the last five years in 
the Sioux country. A little bunch of Lipans are 
constantly on the warpath, Mescalero raiding parties 
drop in occasionally, and the bandits seem to need a 
good many prestamos ; but all that you have been up 
against. Better take a pretty strong party, for the 
authorities thought it necessary to give me a cavalry 
escort from Lampasos to Musquiz and back. And, 
by the way, pick up a boy named George E. Thorn- 
ton, of Socorro, N. M., on your way south. While 
only a youngster, he is one of the best all-round fron- 
tiersmen I ever saw, and speaks Spanish tolerably. 
Had him with me in the Gallup country." 

Details were settled at breakfast, and there Gardi- 
ner resumed his journey eastward, while I took the 
next train for Denver. A fortnight later found me 
in Socorro, plodding through its sandy streets to an 
adobe house in the suburbs where Thornton lodged. 

As I neared the door a big black dog sprang 

fiercely out at me to the full length of his chain, and 

directly thereafter the door framed an extraordinary 

figure. Then barely twenty-one, and downy still of 

[196] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

Up, Thornton's gray eyes were as cold and calculat- 
ing, the lines of his face as severe and even hard, his 
movements as deliberate and expressive of perfect 
self-mastery as those of any veteran of half a dozen 
wars. Six feet two in height, straight as a white 
pine, ideally coupled for great strength without sac- 
rifice of activity, he looked altogether one of the most 
capable and safe men one could wish for in a scrap ; 
and so, later, he well proved himself. 

He greeted me in carefully correct English; and 
while quiet, reserved, and cold of speech as of mamier, 
the tones in which he assured me any friend of Mr. 
Gardiner was welcome, conveyed faint traces of cor- 
diality that roused some hope that he might prove a 
more agreeable camp-mate than his dour mien prom- 
ised. We were not long coming to terms ; indeed the 
moment I outlined the trip contemplated, and its pos- 
sible hazards, it became plain he was keen to come on 
any terms. To my surprise, he proposed bringing 
his dog. Curly. I objected that so heavy a dog 
would be likely to play out on our forced marches, 
and, anyway, would be no mortal use to us. His re- 
ply was characteristic : 

" Curly goes if I go, sir ; but any time you can tell 
me you find him a nuisance, I'll shoot him myself. 
I've had him four years, had him out all through 
Victoria's raid of the Gila, and he 's a safer night 
guard than any ten men you can string around camp : 
[197] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

nothing can approach he won't nail or tell you of. 
With Curly, a night-camp surprise is impossible." 

Whatever cross Curly represented was a mystery. 
Two-tliirds the height and weight of a mastiff, he had 
the broad head and narrow pointed muzzle of a bear, 
and a shaggy reddish-black coat that further height- 
ened his resemblance to a cinnamon, with great gray 
eyes precisely the color of his master's, and as fierce. 
Whichever character was formed on that of the other 
I never learned — the man's on the dog's, or the dog's 
on the man's. Certain it is that not even the luckiest 
chance could have brought together man and beast 
so nearly identical in all their traits. Both were 
honest, almost to a fault. Neither possessed any vice 
I ever could discover. Each was wholly happy only 
when in battle, the more desperate the encounter the 
happier they. Neither ever actually forced a quar- 
rel, or failed to get in the way of one when there was 
the least color of an attempt to fasten one on them. 
And yet both were always considerate of any weaker 
than themselves, and quick to go to their defence. 
Many a time have I seen old Curly seize and throttle 
a big dog he caught rending a little one — as I have 
seen George leap to the aid of the defenceless. Each 
weighed carefully his kind, and found most wanting 
in something requisite to the winning of his confi- 
dence ; and such as they did admit to familiar inti- 
macy, man or beast, were the salt of their kind. 
[198] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

On the train, south-bound for San Antonio, I 
learned something of Thornton's history. The son 
of a judge of Peoria, 111., he had until fifteen the 
advantage of the best schools of his city. Then, pos- 
sessed with a longing for a life of adventure in the 
West, he ran away from home, worked in various 
places at various tasks, until, at sixteen (in 1887) 
he had made his way to- Socorro. Arrived there, he 
attached himself to a small party of prospectors go- 
ing out into the Black Range, into a region then wild 
and hostile as Boone found Kentucky. And there 
for the last five years he had dwelt, ranging through 
the Datils and the Mogallons, prospecting whenever 
the frequently raiding Apaches left him and his mates 
time for work. Indeed, it was Thornton who discov- 
ered and first opened the Gallup coal field, and he 
held it until Victoria ran him out. During this time 
he was in eight desperate fights — the only man to 
escape from one of them; but out of them he came 
unscathed, and trained to a finish in every trick of 
Apache warfare. 

At San Antonio we were met by Sam Cress, who 
for the last four years had been foreman of my Dead- 
man Ranch. Cress was born on Powell River, Vir- 
ginia, but had come to Texas as a mere lad and joined 
a cow outfit. He had really grown up in the Cross 
Timbers of the Palo Pinto, where, in those years, any 
who survived were past masters not only of the weird 
[199] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ways and long hours and outlaw broncos, but also of 
the cunning strategy of the Kiowas and Comanches 
who in that time were raiding ranches and settlements 
every " light of the moon." Cress was then twenty- 
five — just my age — and one of the rare type of men 
who actually hate and dread a fight, but where neces- 
sary, go into it with a jest and come out of it with a 
laugh, as jolly a camp-mate and as steady a stayer 
as I ever knew. Charlie Crawford, a half-breed Mex- 
ican, taken on for his fluency in Spanish, completed 
our outfit. Two mornings later the Mexican Na- 
tional Express dropped us at the Lampasos depot 
about daylight, from which we made our way over a 
mile of dusty road winding through mesquite thickets 
to the Hotel Diligencia, on the main plaza. 

A norther was blowing that chilled us to the mar- 
row, and of course, according to usual Mexican cus- 
tom, not a room in the hotel was heated. The best 
the little Italian proprietor could do for us was a 
pan of charcoal that warmed nothing beyond our fin- 
ger tips. As soon as the sun rose, we squatted along 
the east wall of the hotel and there shivered until 
Providence or his own necessity brought past us a 
peon driving a burro loaded with mesquite roots. 
We bought this wood and dumped it in the central 
patio of the hotel and there lighted a camp-fire that 
made us tolerably comfortable until breakfast. 

Ignorant then of Mexico and its customs, I had 
[200 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

fancied that when a proper hour arrived for a call on 
the Alcalde, Don Nemecio Garcia, I should have a 
chance to warm myself properly and had charitably 
asked my three mates to accompany me on the visit. 
But when at ten o'clock Don Nemecio received us in 
his office, we found him tramping up and down the 
room, wrapped in the warm folds of an ample cloak, 
his neck and face swathed in mufflers to the eyes, arc- 
tics on his feet, and no stove or fireplace in the room. 
As leading merchant of the town, he soon supplied 
us with provisions and various articles, and with four 
saddle and three pack horses for our journey. 

The next day, while my men were busy arranging 
our camp outfit, I took train for Monterey to get a 
letter from General Trevino, commanding the Depart- 
ment of Coahuila, to the comandante of the garrison 
at Musquiz. On this short forenoon's journey I had 
my first taste of the disordered state of the country. 

About ten o'clock our train stopped at the depot 
of Villaldama, where I observed six guardias aduari- 
eras (customs guards) removing the packs from a 
dozen mules, and transferring them to the baggage 
car. Just as this work was nearing completion, a 
band of fourteen contrahandistas dashed up out of 
the surrounding chaparral, dropped off their horses, 
and opened at thirty yards a deadly fire on the 
guards. With others in the smoker, next behind the 
baggage car, I had a fine view of the battle, but a part 
[201 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

of the time we were directly in the Hne of fire, for four 
of our car windows were smashed by bullets, and many 
bullets were buried in the car body. Such encoun- 
ters between guards and smugglers in Mexico were 
always a fight to the death, for under the law the 
guards received one-half the value of their captures, 
while of course the smugglers stood to win or lose all. 

As soon as fire opened, the guards jumped for the 
best cover available, and put up the best fight they 
could. But the odds were hopelessly against them. 
In five minutes it was all over. Three of the guards 
lay dead, one was crippled, and the other two were 
in flight. To be sure two of the smugglers were 
bowled over, dead, and two badly wounded, but the 
remaining ten were not long in repossessing themselves 
of their goods ; and when our train pulled out, the 
baggage car riddled with bullets till it looked like a 
sieve, the ten were hurriedly repacking their mules for 
flight west to the Sierras. Later I learned that early 
that morning the guards had caught the conducta 
with only two men in charge, who had shrewdly 
skipped and scattered to gather the party that ar- 
rived just in time to save their plunder, 

Mexican import duties in those days were so enor- 
mous that very many of the best people then living 
along the border engaged regularly in smuggling, as 
the most profitable enterprise offering. American 
hams, I remember, were then sixty cents a pound, and 
[202] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

everything else in proportion. Even in the city of 
Monterey, stores that displayed on their open shelves 
little but native products, had warehouses where you 
could buy (at three times their value in the States) al- 
most any American or European goods you wanted. 

Well recommended to General Treviilo from kins- 
men of his wife, who was a daughter of General 
Ord of our army, he gave me a letter to Captain 
Abran de la Garza, commanding at Musquiz, direct- 
ing him to furnish me any cavalry escort or supplies 
I might ask for, and the following day we started 
north from Lampasos on our one-hundred-mile march 
to Musquiz. 

The first two days of the journey, for fully sixty 
miles, we travelled across the lands of Don Patricio 
Milmo, who thirty years earlier had arrived in Mon- 
terey, a bare-handed Irish lad, as Patrick Miles. 
Through thrift, cunning trading, and a diplomatic 
marriage into one of the most powerful families of 
the city, he had oreid his name and gilded the pros- 
pects of his progeny, for he had become the richest 
merchant of Monterey and the largest land-holder 
of the State. 

On this march north Curly's value was well dem- 
onstrated. The first two nights I divided our little 
party into four watches, so that one man should 
always be awake, and on the qui vive. But it took 
us no more than these two nights to discover that 
[203] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Curly was a better guard than all of us put together. 
Throughout the noon and early evening camp he 
slept, but as soon as we were in our blankets he was 
on the alert, and nothing could move near the camp 
that he did not tell us of it in low growls, delivered 
at the ear of one or another of the sleepers. How- 
ever, nothing happened on the journey up, save at 
the camp just north of Progreso, where some of the 
villagers tried to slip up on our horses toward mid- 
night, and Curly's growls kept them off. Their trails 
about our camp were plain in the morning. The 
evening of the third day we reached Musquiz, one of 
the oldest towns of the northern border, nestled at 
the foot of a tall sierra amid wide fields of sugar cane, 
irrigated by the clear, sweet waters of the Sabinas. 

At eight o'clock the next morning I called on Cap- 
tain Abran de la Garza, the Comandante, to present 
my letter from General Trevino. 

Like the monarch of all he surveyed, he received 
me in his bed-chamber. As soon as I entered, it be- 
came apparent the Captain was a sportsman as well 
as a soldier. 

The room was perhaps thirty by twenty feet in 
size. Midway of the north wall stood a rude writing- 
table on which were a few official papers. Ranged 
about the room were a dozen or more rawhide-seated 
chairs, each standing stiffly at " attention " against 
the wall in scrupulously equidistant order. Glaring 
[204<] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

at me in crude lettering from a broad rafter facing 
the door was the grimly patriotic sentiment, "Libertad 
o Mucrte! " (Liberty or Death!) In the southwest 
corner of the room stood a low and narrow cot, be- 
neatli whose thin serape covering a tall, gaunt cadav- 
erous frame was plainly outlined. From the headpost 
of the cot dangled a sword and two pistols. And to 
every bed, table, stand, and chain leg was hobbled a 
gamecock — a rarely high-bred lot by their looks, 
that joined in saluting my entrance with a volley of 
questioning crows ! It was, I fancj'', altogether the 
most startling reception visitor ever had. 

In a momentary pause in the crowing, there is- 
sued from a throat riven and deep-seamed from fre- 
quent floodings with fiery torrents of mescal, and out 
of lungs perpetually surcharged with cigarette smoke, 
a hoarse, croaking, but friendly toned, ^^ Buenos dias, 
senor. Sirvase tomar un asiento. Aqui tiene vd su 
casa!" and peering more closely into the dusky cor- 
ner, I beheld a great face, lean to emaciation, domi- 
nated by a magnificent Roman nose, with two great 
dark eyes sunk so deep on either side of its base they 
must forever remain strangers to one another. The 
nose supported a splendid breadth of high forehead, 
which was crowned with a shock of coal-black hair, 
while the jaws were bearded to the eyes. It was the 
face of an ascetic Crusader, sensualized in a measure 
by years of isolated frontier service and its attendant 
[205] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

vices and degeneration, but still a face full of the no- 
ble melancholy of a Quixote. 

Propping himself on a great bony knot of an el- 
bow, the Captain made polite inquiry respecting my 
journey, and then asked in what could he serve me. 
But when I had explained that I wanted to meet the 
owner of the Santa Rosa Ranch, and contemplated 
going out to see it, it was only to learn, to my great 
disappointment, that it had been sold the week pre- 
vious to two Scotchmen. Fancy ! in a country visited 
by foreigners, as a rule, not so often as once a year. 

Nor was I consoled when, noting my obvious cha- 
grin, the Captain sought to lighten the blow by say- 
ing : " But, my dear sir, this is indeed evidence God 
is guarding you. That ranch has been a legacy of 
contention and feud for generations. Besides, what 
good could you get of it? Its nearest line to the 
town is six miles distant, and no life or property 
would be safe there a fortnight. Far the best cattle 
ranch in this section, a fourth of it irrigable, and as 
fine sugar-cane land as one could find, do you fancy 
it would be tenantless as when God first made it if safe 
for occupancy? Why, my dear sir, within the last 
six months Juan Galan's Lipans have killed no less 
than seventy of our townsmen, some in their fields, 
some in the very suburbs of the town, while Mescaleros 
are raiding a little lower down the river, and Nicanor 
Rascon is apt to sweep down any day with his ban- 
[206] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

didos and plunder strong boxes and stores. It is 
with shame I admit it, for I, Don Abran, am responsi- 
ble for the peace and safety of this district. But, 
mil demonios! what can I do with one troop of cavalry 
against bandits ruthless as savages, and savages cun- 
ning as bandits? 

" Oh ! but if I only had horses ! Those devils take 
remounts when they like from the remoudas of ranch- 
eros, but I, carajo! I am always limited to my troop 
allotment. 

" Burn a hundred candles to the Virgin, amigo mio, 
as a thank offering for your deliverance, and wait 
and see what happens to the Scotchmen; and while 
waiting, it will be my great pleasure to show you some 
of the grandest cock-fighting you ever saw. Look at 
them! Beauties, are they not? Purest blood in all 
Mexico ! Kept me poor four years getting them to- 
gether ! But now ! Ah ! now, it will not be long till 
they win me ranches and remoudas! 

" Ah ! me. Time was not so very long ago when 
Abran de la Garza was called the most dashing jefe 
de tropa in the service, when senoritas fell to him as 
alamo leaves shower down to autumn winds; when 
pride consumed him, and ambition for a Division was 
burning in his brain. But now this demon of a fron- 
tier had scorched and driven him till naught remains 
to him but the chance of an occasional fruitless skir- 
mish, his thirst for mescal, his greed for aguilas, and 
[207] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

his cocks to win them ! But, sciior, bet no money 
against them, for it would grieve me to win from a 
stranger introduced by my General." 

Then, with a grave nod of friendly warning, he 
turned an affectionate gaze upon his pets. Mean- 
time, as if conscious of his pride in them, the cocks 
were boastfully crowing paeans to their own victories, 
past and to come, in shrill and ill-timed but uninter- 
rupted concert, bronze wings flapping, crimson crests 
truculently tossing insolent challenge for all comers. 

With the one plan of my trip completely smashed, 
I felt too much upset to continue the interview, and 
excused myself. But after a forenoon spent alone 
beside the broad and swift current the Sabinas was 
pouring past me, gazing at the dim blue mountain- 
crests in the west that I had learned marked its 
source, the irresistible call to penetrate the unknown 
impressed and then possessed me so completely that, at 
our midday breakfast, I announced to the Captain 
I had decided to follow the river to its head, and pass 
thence into the desert for a thirty-days' circle to the 
north and west. 

*' But, valga nu Dios, man,^* he objected, " I have 
no force I can spare for sufficient time to give you 
adequate escort for such a journey. It would be 
madness to undertake it with less than fifty men. I 
am responsible to my General for your safety, and 
cannot sanction it. Beyond the Alamo Cafion the 
[208] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

only waters are in isolated springs in the plains and 
in natural rain-fall tanks along the mountain crests, 
known to none except the Indians and Tomas Alva- 
rez, an old half-breed Kickapoo long attached to my 
command as scout, who ranged that country years 
ago with his tribe, and who guides my troop on such 
short scouts as we have been able to make beyond the 
Alamo, and — " 

" Pardon," I ventured to interrupt, " that will do 
nicely; give me Alvarez and one good trustworthy 
soldier, and we'll make the circle without trouble." 

" Six of you ! Why, you'd never get twenty miles 
out of town in that direction. I can't permit it." 

" Pardon again, Don Abran," I broke in, " but we 
have for years been accustomed to move in small par- 
ties through country that held a hundred times more 
hostiles than you have here, and you can trust us to 
take care of ourselves. Go we shall in any event, 
without your men if you withhold them." 

" Well, well, hijo mio," he responded, " if you are 
bound to go, we will see. Only I shall write my Gen- 
eral that I have sought to restrain you." 

To us the prevailing local fears seemed absurd. 
Admittedly there were only sixteen of the Lipans then 
left, men, women, and children, their chief, Juan Ga- 
lan, the son by a Lipan squaw, of the father of Garza 
Galan, then the leading merchant of the town, and 
later a distinguished Governor of his State. Orig- 
[209] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

inally a powerful tribe occupying both banks of the 
lower Rio Grande to the south of the Comanches, in 
their wars with Texans and Mexicans the Lipans had 
dwindled until only this handful remained. Three 
years earlier the entire band had been captured, after 
a desperate fight, and removed by the Mexican au- 
thorities to a small reservation five hundred miles 
southwest of Musquiz. But at the end of two years, 
as soon as the guard over them relaxed, indomitable 
as Dull Knife and his Cheyennes in their desperate 
fight (in 1879) to regain their northern highland 
home, Juan Galan and his pathetically small follow- 
ing jumped their reservation and dodged and fought 
their way back to the Musquiz Mountains ; and there 
for the last ten months, constantly harassed and 
harassing, they had been fighting for the right to die 
among the hills they loved. To the natives they 
were bloodthirsty wolves, beasts to be exterminated; 
to an impartial onlooker they were a heroic band 
courting death in a splendid last fight for fatherland. 
Their bold deeds would fill a book. Even in this 
town of fifteen hundred people guarded by a troop of 
cavalry, no one ventured out s.t night except from 
the most pressing necessity ; and of the seventy killed 
by them since their return, nearly a third were 
macheted in the streets of Musquiz during Juan 
Galan's night raids on the town. 

The most effective work against them was done by 
[210] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

a band of about a hundred Seminole-negro half- 
breeds, to whom the Government had made a grant of 
four square leagues twenty-five miles west of Mus- 
quiz, on the Nacimiento. Come originally out of the 
Indian Territory in the United States, where the 
Seminoles had cross-bred with their negro slaves, this 
same band a few years earlier had been most efficient 
scouts for our own troops at Fort Clark, and other 
border garrisons, and it was this record that led the 
Mexican Government to seek and lodge them on the 
Nacimiento, as a buffer against the Lipans. 

That night arrangements for our trip were con- 
cluded: the Captain consented to furnish me old 
Tomas Alvarez and a young soldier named Manuel, 
but only on condition that he himself should escort 
us, with fifty men of his troop, one day's march up the 
river, which would carry us beyond the recent range 
of the Lipans. So early the next morning we 
marched out westward, passing the last house a half- 
mile outside the centre of the town, along a dim, little- 
travelled trail that followed the river to the Seminole 
village on the Nacimiento. The day's journey was 
without incident, other than our amusement at what 
seemed to us the Captain's overzealous caution in 
keeping scouts out ahead and to right and left of the 
column, and in posting sentries about our night camp. 

The following morning, a Sunday, after much good 
advice, the kindly Captain bade us a reluctant fare- 
[211] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

well, and led his troops down-river toward home, while 
our little party of six headed westward up-river. 
Near noon we sighted the Seminole village, and 
shortly entered it, a close cluster of low jacals built 
of poles and mud. Odd it looked, as we entered, a 
deserted village, no living thing in sight but a few 
dogs. Thus our surprise was all the greater when, 
nearing the farther edge of the village, our ears were 
greeted with the familiar strains of " Jesus, Lover of 
My Soul," issuing from a large jacal which we soon 
learned was the Seminole church. Fancy it ! the last 
thing one could have dreamed of! An honest old 
Methodist hymn sung in English by several score de- 
vout worshippers in the heart of Mexico, on the very 
dead line between savagery and civilization, and at 
that, sung by a people all savage on one side of their 
ancestry and semi-savage on the other! 

Before the singing of the hymn was finished, star- 
tled by the barking of their dogs, out of the low door- 
way sprang half a dozen men, strapping big fellows, 
— one, the chief, bent half double with age, — all heav- 
ily armed. The moment they saw we were Ameri- 
cans we were most cordially received, and even urged 
to stop a few days with them, and give them news of 
the Texas border. But for this we had no time ; and 
after a short visit — for which the congregation ad- 
journed service — we filled our canteens, let our 
horses drink their fill at the great Nacimiento spring 
[212] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

that bui'st forth a veritable young river from beneath 
a low bluff beside the town, and struck out westward 
for Alamo Canon. Our afternoon march gave us 
little concern, for our route lay across rolling, lightly 
timbered uplands that offered little opportunity for 
ambush. That night we made a " dry camp " on 
the divide, preferring to approach the Alamo in day- 
light. 

Having struck camp before dawn the next morn- 
ing, by noon we saw ahead of us a great gorge divid- 
ing the mountain we were approaching — great in its 
height, but of a scant fifty yards in breadth, perpen- 
dicular of sides, a narrow line of brush and timber 
creeping down along its bottom, but stopping just 
short of the open plains. Scouting was useless. If 
there were any Indians about, we certainly had been 
seen, and they lay in ambush for us in a place of their 
own choosing. We must have water, and to get it 
must enter the caiion. So straight into the timber 
that filled the mouth of the gorge we rode at a run, 
riding a few paces apart to avoid the possible potting 
of our little bunch, and a hundred yards within the 
outer fringe of timber we reached the water our ani- 
mals so badly needed. 

And right there, all about the " sink " of the Alamo, 

where the last drops of the stream sank into the 

thirsty sands, the bottom was covered thick with fresh 

moccasin tracks, and in a little opening in the bush 

[213] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

near to the sink smouldered the embers of that morn- 
big's camp-fire of a band of Lipans ! Apparently 
we were in for it, and seriously debated a retreat. 
Our position could not be worse. Tomas told us that 
the trail of the Lipans led straight up the valley, and 
for eight miles the canon was never more than three 
hundred yards wide, and often no more than fifty, 
with almost perpendicular walls rising on either side 
two hundred or more feet in height, so nearly perpen- 
dicular that we would for the entire distance be in 
range from the bordering cliff crests, while any enemy 
there ambushed would be so safely covered they could 
follow our route and pick us off at their leisure. To 
be sure, the brush along the stream afforded some 
shelter, but no real protection. However, out now 
nearly fifty miles from INIusquiz, and well into the 
country we had come to see, we pushed ahead. Cress, 
Thornton, and Manuel prowling afoot through the 
brush a hundred yards in advance, Crawford, Tomas, 
and myself bringing up the rear with the horses. 
And so we advanced for nearly half a mile, when the 
Lipan trail turned east, toward Musquiz, up a crevice 
in the cliff a goat would have no easy time ascending. 
Thus we were led to argue that the Lipans had left 
their camp before discovering our approach, and by 
this time were probably miles away to the east. 

Mounting, therefore, we made the best pace our 
pack animals could stand up through the eight miles 
[214] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

of the narrows, riding well apart from each other, the 
only safeguard we could take, all craning our necks 
for view of the cliff crests ahead of us. But no living 
thing showed save a few deer and coyotes, and two 
mountain lions that, alarmed by our clattering pace, 
slipped past us back down the gorge. When at last 
we reached the end of the narrows and the canon 
broadened to a width of several hundred yards, all 
but fifty or seventy-five yards of the belt of timber 
lining the stream along the south wall being compara- 
tively level grassy bunch land, nearly devoid of cover, 
we congratulated ourselves that we had not been 
scared into a retreat. 

Keen to put as much distance as we could between 
us and the Lipans, we travelled on up the canon at a 
sharp trot, keeping well to its middle, until about five 
p. m., when we reached a point where it widened into 
a broad bay, nearly seven hundred yards from crest 
to crest, with a dense thicket of mesquite trees near its 
centre that made fine shelter and an excellent point of 
defence for a night camp. The stream hugged the 
east wall of the canon, where it had carved out a tor- 
tuous bed perhaps one hundred and fifty yards wide, 
and so deep below the bench we occupied that only 
the tops of tall cottonwoods were visible from the 
thicket. 

While the rest of us were busy unsaddling and un- 
packing, Thornton slung all our canteens over his 
[215] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

shoulder, and started for the stream. But no sooner 
had he disappeared below the edge of the bench, a 
scant two hundred yards from our camp, before a 
rapid rifle fire opened which, while we knew it must 
proceed from his direction, echoed back from one cliff 
wall to the other until it appeared like an attack on 
our position from all sides, while the echoes multi- 
plied to the volume of cannon fire at the sound of each 
shot. Indeed, never have I heard such thunderous, 
crashing, ear-splitting gun-detonations except on one 
other occasion, when aboard the British battle ship 
Invincible and in her six-inch gun battery while a 
salute was being fired. 

Frightened by the fire, one of our pack horses 
stampeded down the canon. Sending Manuel in pur- 
suit, and leaving Tomas at the camp, Crawford, 
Cress, and I ran for the break of benchland, to reach 
and aid Thornton. Nearing it, all three dropped 
flat, and crawled to its edge, just in time to see George 
make a neat snap-shot at a Lipan midway of a flying 
leap over a log, and drop him dead. Old George was 
standing quietly on the lower slope of the bench just 
above the timber, while the shots from eight or ten 
Lipan rifles were raining all about him ! The Lipans 
lay in the timber only one hundred to one hundred and 
fifty yards away, and it was a miracle they did not 
get him. Instantly Cress and Crawford slipped back 
out of range, made a detour that brought them to 
[216] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

the bench edge within fifty yards of the Lipans' posi- 
tion, and opened on them a cross fire, while I lay 
above George and shelled away at the smoke of their 
discharge, for not one showed a head after George 
potted the jumper. Five minutes after Cress and 
Crawford opened on them, the Lipan fire ceased 
entirely. For an hour we scouted along the bank 
trying to locate them, but apparently they had with- 
drawn. 

Then, while the others covered us, George and I 
slipped through the bush to investigate his kill, and 
found a great gaunt old warrior at least sixty years 
old, wrinkled of face as if he might be a hundred, but 
sound of teeth and coal-black of hair as a youth, 
his face and body scarred in nearly a score of places 
from bullet and machete wounds, — the sign manual 
writ indelibly on his war-worn frame by many a 
doughty enemy. We carried him to the bench crest, 
Crawford fetched a spade and we dug a grave and 
buried him with his weapons laid upon his breast, as 
his own people would have buried him, and then we 
fired across his grave the final salute he obviously so 
well had earned. 

More than he would have done for us .'' Yes, I dare 
say. But then our points of view were different. 
Throughout his long life a terror to all whites he 
doubtless had been ; upon us he was stealthily slip- 
ping, ruthless as a tiger; but then he and his tribes- 
[217] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

men and lands had so long been prey to the greed of 
white invaders of his domain that it is hard to blame 
him for fighting, according to the traditions of his 
race, to the death. 

Lying in camp within the thicket that night, nat- 
urally without a fire, Thornton made it plain that 
his voluntary start for water was providentially 
timed. He told us that, while descending the slope 
to the timber, he saw the head of a little column of 
Indians, stealing up the valley through the brush, 
saw them before they saw him; but just as he saw 
them, he slipped on some pebbles and nearly fell, 
making noise that attracted their attention. In- 
stantly they slid into cover, and opened fire on him. 

Asked by me why he himself had not sought cover, 
George answered, " No show to get one except by 
keeping out in the open on the high ground, and I 
wanted one! " 

It was plain the Lipans had sighted us when too 
late to lay an ambush for us in the narrows, had made 
a short cut through the hills and dropped down into 
the stream bed with the plan to attack us at our night 
camp. Evidently they had not expected us to camp 
so early, and were jogging easily along through the 
brush, for once off their guard. But for George's 
chance start for the stream, nothing but faithful old 
Curly's perpetual watchfulness could have saved us 
from a bad mix-up that night. Already it had been 
[ 218 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

so well proved that we could safely trust Curly to 
guard us against surprise, we slept soundly through 
the night, without disturbance of any sort. 

The next forenoon's march to the head waters of 
the Alamo was an anxious one, and was made with 
the utmost caution, for we were sure the Lipans would 
be lying in wait for us; but no sign of them did we 
again see for three weeks. 

Leaving the Alamo, we made a great circle through 
the desert, swinging first north toward the Sierra 
Mojada, then south, and ultimately eastward toward 
Monclova. The trip proved to be one of great hard- 
ship and danger, but only from scarcity of water; 
for while at isolated springs we found recent camps of 
one sort of desert prowler or another, we neither met 
nor saw any. Finally, late one night of the fourth 
week, we reached a little spring called Zacate, out in 
the open plain only about thirty miles south of Mus- 
quiz. But between us and only five miles south of the 
town stretched a tall range through which Tomas knew 
of only two passes practicable for horsemen: one, to 
the west, via the Alamo, the route we had come, would 
involve a journey of eighty miles, while by the other, 
an old Indian and smugglers' trail crossing the summit 
directly south of Musquiz, we could make the town 
in thirty-two miles. The latter route Tomas strongly 
opposed as too dangerous. Twelve miles from where 
we lay it entered the range, and for fifteen miles fol- 
[219] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

lowed terrible rough canons wherein, every step of the 
way, we should be right in the heart of the recent 
range of the Lipans, and where every turn offered 
chance of a perfect ambush. But with our horses 
exhausted, worn to mere shadows from long marches 
through country affording scant feed, with not one left 
that could much more than raise a trot, we finally 
decided to chance the shorter route. That night we 
supped on cold antelope meat and biscuits, to avoid 
building a fire, and rolled up in our blankets, but not 
to rest long undisturbed. 

Shortly after midnight Curly roused us with low 
growls. Though the moon was full, the night was 
so clouded one could hardly see the length of a gun- 
barrel. Curly's warnings continuing, George and 
Tomas rolled out of their blankets and crawled out 
among and about the horses, and lay near them an 
hour or more, till Curly's growls finally ceased. 
Then we called them in and all lay down, and finished 
the night in peace. Early the next morning, however, 
a short circle discovered the trail of three Indians 
who had crept near to the horses and reconnoitred 
our position. Their back trail led due northeast, 
the direction we had to follow; and when we had 
ridden out half a mile from the Ojo Zacate, we found 
where their trail joined that of the main band. The 
*' sign " showed they had been soutli toward jMonclova 
on a successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain 
[ 220 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

they had passed us in the night with a bunch of at 
least twenty horses, heading toward a point of the 
range only five or six miles west of where we should 
be compelled to enter it. 

We were in about as bad a hole as could be con- 
ceived. Plainly the Indians knew of our presence in 
the vicinity. It was equally certain their scouts would 
be watching our every move throughout the day, and 
there was not one chance in a thousand of our cross- 
ing the range without attack from some ambush of 
such vantage as to leave small ground for hope that 
we could survive it. All but Cress and Thornton 
urged me to turn back, although we were all nearly 
afoot, and had no food left except two or three 
pounds of flour, and a little meat. After very short 
deliberation I decided to go ahead. The Lipans 
knew precisely where we were, and if they wanted us 
they could (in the event of a retreat) easily run us 
down and surround us and hold us off food and water 
until we were starved out sufficiently to charge their 
position and be shot down. Better far put up a 
bold bluff and take chances of cutting through them. 

So on we plodded slowly toward the hills, all of us 
walking most of the way to save our horses all we 
could. At 2 p. m. we cut the old trail Tomas was 
heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the 
mouth of a frightfully rough canon, its bottom and 
slopes thickly covered with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, 
[221 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

and, later, higher up, with pines, junipers, oaks, and 
spruces, with here and there groups of great boul- 
ders that would easily conceal a regiment. Two or 
three miles in, the gorge deepened until tall mountain 
slopes were rising steeply on either side of us, and 
narrowed until we had to pick our way over the rough 
boulders of the dry stream-bed. 

Our advance was slow, for it had to be made with 
the utmost caution. Thornton, Cress, and Tomas 
scouted afoot, one in the bottom of the gorge, and 
one half-way up each of its side walls, while Manuel 
and Crawford followed two hundred yards behind 
them, also afoot, driving the saddle and pack horses ; 
and I trailed two hundred yards behind the horses, 
watching for any sign of an attempted surprise from 
the rear. Thus scattered, we gave them no chance 
to bowl over several of us at the first fire from any 
ambush they might have arranged. 

From the windings of the canon we were out of 
sight of each other much of the time; personally, I 
recall that afternoon as one of the most lonely and 
uncomfortable I ever passed. I slipped watchfully 
along, stopping often to listen, eyes sweeping the hill- 
sides and the gulch below me, searching every tree and 
boulder, with no sound but the soughing of the wind 
through the tree-tops, and an occasional soft clatter 
of shingle beneath the slipping hoofs of my unshod 
horse. 

[ 222 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

But throughout the afternoon the only sign of 
man or beast that I saw was a lot of sotol plants 
recently uprooted, and their roots eaten by bears. 

Shortly after dark we reached the only permanent 
water in the canon, a clear, cold, sweet spring, bursting 
out from beneath a rock, only to sink immediately into 
the arid sands of the dry stream-bed. Immediately 
below the spring and midway of the gorge bottom 
stood an island-like uplift, twenty yards in length by 
ten in width, covered with brush, leaving on either side 
a narrow rocky channel, and from either side of these 
two channels the canon walls, heavily timbered, rose 
very steeply. Just above these narrows, the gorge 
widened into seven or eight acres of level, park-like, 
well-grassed benchland, and into this little park we 
turned our horses loose for the night, for they were 
too worn to stray. 

Having made eight or ten miles up the canon dur- 
ing the afternoon march, we were now within a mile 
of the summit, and no more than seven miles from 
Musquiz. Indeed we should have tried to reach the 
town that night had not Tomas told us the next three 
miles of the trail were so steep and rough he could 
not undertake to fetch us over it unless we abandoned 
our animals, saddles, and packs. 

We turned into our blankets early, after a cold 
supper, for we did not care to chance a fire. Cress 
and I slept together in the channel to the west of the 
[223] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

island ; Manuel and Tomas to the east of It, quite out 
of our sight; Thornton and Crawford ten paces 
north, in sight of both ourselves and the Mexicans. 
A little moonlight filtered down through the trees, but 
not enough to enable us to see any distance. 

Scarcely were we asleep, it seemed to me, before 
Curly awakened Cress and m^'self, growling immedi- 
ately at our heads. Rising in our blankets, guns in 
hand, and listening intently, we could hear on the 
hillside above us what sounded like the movements of 
a bear. Whatever it might be, it was approaching. 
Not a word had been spoken, and Curly's growls were 
so low we had no idea any of the others had been 
roused. So we sat on the alert for perhaps fifteen 
minutes, when the sounds above us began receding, 
and we lay down again. But just as we were passing 
back into dreamland, Curly again startled us with a 
sharper, fiercer note that meant trouble at hand. 

As we rose to a sitting posture, in the dim moon- 
light we could plainly see a dark crouching figure 
twenty j^ards below us, which advanced a step or two, 
stopped as if to listen, and again advanced and 
stopped. What it was we could not make out. At 
first I thought it must be a bear, but presently I felt 
sure I caught the glimmer of a gun barrel, and 
nudged Cress with my elbow. We were in the act oi 
raising our rifles to down it, whatever it might be, 
when Thornton sang out, " Hold on, boys ; that 's old 
[ 224 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

Tomas ! " And, indeed, so it proved. All had been 
awakened at the first alarm, and Thornton had seen 
Tomas roll from his blankets into the bottom of the 
east channel, and crawl away on the scout for the 
cause of Curly's uneasiness that so nearly had cost 
him his life. He had been so intent for movement on 
the hillsides that he had not noticed us watching him. 

The next morning we were moving by dawn, 
Tomas, Cress, and mj-self in the lead, the others trail- 
ing along one hundred or two hundred yards behind 
us. For half a mile the gorge widened, as most moun- 
tain gorges do near their heads, into beautiful grassy 
slopes rising steeply before us, thickly timbered with 
post oak. Then, issuing from the timber, we saw it 
was a blind caiion we were in, a cul de sac, with no 
pass through the crest of the range. 

Before us rose a ver}' nearly perpendicular wall 
for probably six hundred feet, up which the old trail 
zigzagged, climbing from ledge to ledge, so steep that 
when, later, we were fetching our horses up it, one of 
the pack horses lost its balance and fell fifty feet, crip- 
pling it so badly we had to kill it. The cliff face, 
about three hundred yards in width, and flanked to 
right and left by the walls of the caiion, was entirely 
bare of trees, but thickly strewn with boulders. From 
an enemy on the top of the two flanking walls, climb- 
ers of the cliff face could get no shelter whatever. 
Thus it was important that our advance should reach 
[225 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

the summit as quickly as possible. So up the three of 
us scrambled, about thirty yards apart, disregarding 
the trail. 

When we were nearly half-way up, and just as we 
had paused to catch our breath, several rifle shots 
rang out in quick succession, which, from some pecu- 
liar echo of the canon, sounded as if they had been 
fired beneath us. Upon turning, we could see noth- 
ing of our three mates or the horses — they were hid- 
den from our view by the timber. Fancying they 
were attacked from the rear, I was about to call a 
return to their relief, when I saw Thornton run to the 
near edge of the timber, drop on one knee behind a 
tree, and open fire on the cliff-crest directly above our 
heads. 

Whirling and looking up, I was just in time to see 
eight or ten men bob up on the crest and take quick 
snap-shots at the three of us in the lead, and then 
duck to cover. We were so nearly straight under 
them, however, that they overshot us, although they 
were barely one hundred yards from us. Dropping 
behind boulders we peppered back at the flashs of 
their rifles, which was all we three in the lead there- 
after saw of them ; for after the first volley most of 
them lay close and directed their fire at the men in 
the edge of the timber, but occasionally a rifle was 
tipped over the edge of a boulder and fired at random 
in our direction. And all the time they were yelling 
[ 226 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

at us, " Que vienen, puercos! Que vienen! " (Conic on 
pigs ! Come on !) 

I was puzzled. Both Cress and I thought they 
were Mexicans, but Tomas insisted they were Lipans. 
And true enough it was the Lipans all spoke Spanish 
and dressed like Mexican peons. Whoever they 
might be, we could not stay where we were. By the 
firing and voices there were at least a dozen of them, 
and obviously it was only a matter of moments before 
they would occupy the two flanking walls and have us 
openly exposed. 

It was a bad dilemma. Retreat was impossible, 
down a gorge commanded at short range from both 
sides. If we took shelter in it, they could starve us 
out; if we attempted to descend it, they could easily 
pick us off; if any of us escaped back to the plain it 
would only be to incur greater exposure if they pur- 
sued, or probably to perish of hunger before we 
could reach any settlements. Thus the situation 
called for no reflection — it was charge and dislodge 
them, or die. 

Yelling to the boys below to close up on us, we 
three settled down to the maintenance of the hottest 
fire we could deliver at the rifle flashes above us, to 
cover their advance. Luckily there were many boul- 
ders scattered along the grassy treeless slope they had 
to advance across to reach the foot of the cliff. Thus 
by darting from one boulder to another they had tol- 
[227] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

erable cover and were able to reach us with no worse 
casualties than a comparatively slight flesh wound 
through Manuel's side and the shooting away of 
Thornton's belt buckle. 

Then we started the charge, led really by Thorn- 
ton, who, active as a goat, would have raced straight 
into the downpour of lead if I had not continually re- 
strained him. Three would scramble up fifteen or 
twenty feet, and then drop behind boulders, while the 
other three kept up a heavy fire on the summit; and 
then the rear rank would advance to a line with their 
position, while they shelled the enemy. All the time 
a rain of bullets was splashing on the rocks all about 
us, but luckily for us they did not expose themselves 
enough to deliver an accurate fire. 

After we had made five or six such rushes, and 
were about half-way up, we could hear the voices of 
what sounded like the larger part of the band reced- 
ing. Supposing they were swinging for the two side 
walls to flank us, we doubled our speed and presently 
dropped beneath the shelter of a wall of rock about 
four feet high, from behind which our enemy had 
been firing. 

Two or three minutes earlier their fire had ceased, 
and what to make of it we did not know. We found 
that an exposure of our hats on our gun-muzzles drew 
no fire ; yet, driven by sheer desperation, and expect- 
ing that every man of us would get shot full of holes, 
[228] 



ACROSS THE B0RDER 

we simultaneously sprang over the rock, and dropped 
flat on the summit — amid utter silence, about the 
most happily surprised lot of men in all Mexico! 
The enemy had decamped. But where? And with 
what purpose? And why had they not flanked us? 

Careful scouting soon showed they had retired in 
a body down the trail we must follow to reach Mus- 
quiz, as for nearly three miles the descent was as 
rough and difficult as the ascent had been. 

Leaving Cress, who was ill, and Manuel, who was 
weak from loss of blood, to hold the summit, the rest 
of us descended to fetch up our horses, and a hard 
hour's job we had of it, for we packed on our backs 
the load of the dead pack horse and those of his mates 
the last half of the ascent, rather than risk losing 
another animal. Upon our return we found Manuel 
gloating over three trophies — a hat shot through 
the side by a ball that had evidently " creased " the 
wearer's head, an old Spanish spur, and a gun scab- 
bard — which he seemed to find salve for the burning 
wound in his side. 

Beneath us to the north lay Musquiz, in plain sight, 
a scant six miles distant. In the clear dry air of the 
hills, it looked so near that a good running jump 
might land one in the plaza, and yet none of us ex- 
pected we all should enter it again. The odds were 
against it, for below us lay three miles of hill trail 
any step down which might land us in a worse ambush 
[229] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

than the last, and we never imagined the enemy would 
fail to engage us again. But the descent had to be 
made, and down it we started. Cress and Manuel 
bringing up the rear with the horses, the rest of us 
scouting ahead, dodging from rock to tree, advancing 
slowly, expecting a volley, but receiving none. 

For a mile the band followed the trail, and we fol- 
lowed their fresh tracks ; then they left the trail and 
turned west through the timber. However, we never 
abated our watchfulness until well out of the hills and 
near the outskirts of the town, which we reached shortly 
after noon. There, breakfasting generously if not 
comfortably with Don Abran and his gamecocks, I 
got news that made me less regretful of my failure to 
obtain the Santa Rosa Ranch: one of its two Scotch 
purchasers had been killed two days before my re- 
turn, in attempting to repel a raid on his camp by 
Nicanor Rascon! 

With Cress too ill to travel, the next morning I 
left Crawford to care for him, bade farewell to good 
old Don Abran, and started for Lampasos with 
Thornton and Curly. 

We nooned at Santa Cruz, a big sheep ranch mid- 
way between Musquiz and Progreso, leaving there 
about two o'clock. An hour later, we heard behind 
us a clatter of racing hoofs, and presently were over- 
taken by a hatless Mexican, riding bareback at top 
speed, who told us that shortly after our departure 
[ 230 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

the lapans had raided Santa Cruz, and that of its 
twelve inhabitants, men, women, and children, he was 
the only survivor. Thus were the Lipans still levy- 
ing heavy toll for their wrongs ! 

Toward evening we entered Progreso, a village re- 
puted among the natives to be a nest of thieves and 
assassins. While Thornton was away buying meat 
and I was rearranging our pack, six of the ugliest- 
looking Mexicans I ever saw strolled across the plaza, 
evidently to size up our outfit. Apparently it was 
to their liking, for when, twenty minutes later, we 
were riding into the ford of the Rio Salado just south 
of the town, the six, all heavily armed, loped past us, 
and when they emerged from the ford openly and 
impudently divided, three taking to the brush on one 
side of the road, and three on the other, riding forward 
and flanking the trail we had to follow. From then 
till dark their hats were almost constantly visible, two 
or three hundred yards ahead of us. Our horses be- 
ing so jaded, we were sure they were not the prize 
sought, and it remained certain they were after our 
saddles and arms. 

Riding quietly on behind them until it was too dark 
to see our move or follow the trail, we slipped off to 
the westward of the road, and camped in a deep de- 
pression in the plain, where we thought we could ven- 
ture a small fire to cook our supper. But the fire 
proved a blunder. Before the water was fairly boil- 
[231 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ing in the coffee pot, Curly signalled trouble, and we 
jumped out of the fire-light and dropped flat in the 
bush just as the six fired a volley into the camp, one 
of the shots hitting the fire and filling our frying-pan 
with cinders and ashes. For an hour or more they 
sneaked about the camp, constantly firing into it, 
while we lay close without returning a single shot, 
confident they would not dare try to rush us while 
uncertain of our position. And so it proved, for at 
length Curly's warnings ceased, and we knew they had 
withdrawn. 

Waiting till midnight, we saddled and packed and 
made a wide detour to the west, striking the road 
again perhaps four miles nearer Lampasos, which we 
reached safely late the next afternoon, our grand old 
camp-guard. Curly, in better condition than either 
of us. 

Curiously, seven months later, in August, 1883, 
while on another ranch-hunting trip in Mexico, this 
time along the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre in 
northern Chihuahua, at least five hundred miles dis- 
tant from Musquiz, I learned the solution of our puz- 
zle as to whether our last fight in Coahuila was with 
Lipans or Mexicans. The manager of the Corrali- 
tos Ranch, which I was then engaged in examining, 
was Adolph Munzenberger. The previous Winter he 
had lived in Musquiz, as Superintendent of the Cedral 
[ 232 ] 




The six, all heavily armed, loped past us" 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

Coal Mines. While there, however, I had not met 
him or his family. 

One evening at dinner, Mrs. Munzenberger asked 
me, "Have you ever, perchance, been in Coahuila.'"' 

"Yes," I answered, "I spent several weeks in the 
State last winter." 

"And how did you like it.''" she asked. 

" Well, I must say I found rather too many thrills 
there for comfort," I replied. And when I men- 
tioned our affair on the sierra south of Musquiz, she 
broke in with: 

"Indeed! And you are the crazy gringo Don 
Abran tried to stop from going into the desert ! We 
heard of it ; in fact, it was the talk of the town, and 
no one expected you would ever get back. And by 
the way, it was a contraband conducta owned by 
friends of ours who attacked you back of the town ! 
Droll, is it not.?" 

"Perhaps — now," I doubtfully answered. 

" Yes," Mrs. Munzenberger continued, " they were 
on their way to Monclova. The night before the at- 
tack, the wife of the owner (one of the leading mer- 
chants of the town) took me to their camp in the 
brush near town to see their goods ; and a lovely lot of 
American things they had." 

" But why did they attack us ? " I queried. 

"Well, you see, it was this way," she explained. 
" The smugglers broke camp long before dawn, and 
[233] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

started south over the same trail by which you were 
approaching; they wanted to get over the summit 
before the Lipans or guards were likely to be stirring, 
for it was a point at which conductas were often at- 
tacked. But shortly after sunrise, and just as their 
advance guard reached the summit, they discovered 
your party ascending, and, mistaking your uniformed 
soldiers for guardias, the leader lined a dozen of his 
men along the ridge, and opened on you, while his 
mayordomo rushed the pack mules of the conducta 
back down the trail they had come. Early in the 
fight they discovered you were a party of gringos^ 
and not guards, and decamped as soon as their con- 
ducta had time to reach a point where they could 
leave the trail. 

" Had their goods not been at stake, they would have 
wiped you out, if they could, for the leader's brother 
got a shot in the head of which he died the same day. 
Indeed, when the two men you left behind started to 
leave the country, he had planned to follow and kill 
them, but luckily Don Abran heard of it, and re- 
strained him." 

And this explained the mystery why they had not 
flanked us ! 

Brave to downright rashness, George Thornton 
lasted only about two years longer. 

The Winter of 1883-84 he spent with me on my 
[ 234 ] 




>lM^>^1^ ^^'^4^ -ib^^^-SL^^IMiSi^J 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

Pecos Ranch. Early in the Spring he came to me 
and said: 

"Old man, if you want to do me a favor, get me 
an appointment as Deputy United States Marshal in 
the Indian Territory. I'm going to quit you, any- 
way. My guns are getting rusty. It 's too slow for 
me here." 

"Why, George," I replied, "if you are bound to 
die, why don't you blow your brains out yourself.'"' 
— for at the time few new marshals in the Indian Terri- 
tory survived the first year of their appointment. 

"Never mind about me," he answered; "I'll take 
care of George. Anyway, I'd rather get leaded there 
than rust here." 

So I got him the appointment. 

A few months later, when the Territory was thrown 
open to settlement, Thornton homesteaded one hun- 
dred and sixty acres of land which early became a 
town site, and now is the business centre of the city of 
Guthrie. Had he lived and retained possession of his 
homestead, it would have made him a millionaire. But 
greedy speculators soon started a contest of his title. 

While this contest was at its height, one day Thorn- 
ton learned some Indians living a few miles from the 
town were selling whiskey, contrary to Federal law. 
As he was mounting for the raid, having intended to 
go alone, a man he scarcely knew offered to accom- 
pany him, and Thornton finally deputized him. 
[235] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

The story of his end was told by the Indians them- 
selves, who later were captured by a large force of 
marshals, and tried for his murder. They said that 
just at dusk they saw two horsemen approaching. 
Presently they recognized Marshal Thornton and at 
once opened fire on him, eight of them, from behind 
the little grove of cottonwoods in which they were 
camped. Immediately Thornton shifted his bridle to 
his teeth, and charged them straight, firing with his 
two ".41 " Colts. The moment he charged, his com- 
panion dodged into a clump of timber, where they 
saw liim dismount. On came Thornton straight into 
tlieir fire, shooting with deadly accuracy, killing two 
of their number, and wounding another before he fell. 

Presently, at the flash of a rifle from the brush, 
where his companion had dismounted, Thornton 
pitched from his horse dead. They had done their 
best to kill him, they frankly swore, but it was his 
own deputy's shot that laid him low. 

All the collateral circumstantial evidence so fully 
corroborated this that the Indians were acquitted. 
The shot that killed him hit him in the back of the 
head and was of a calibre different from that of the 
Indians' guns; and his deputy never returned to 
Guthrie. 

That it was a murder prearranged by some of the 
greedy contestants for his land, was further proved 

[ 236 ] 



ACROSS THE BORDER 

by the fact that every scrap of his private papers 
was found to have disappeared, and, through their 
loss, his family lost the homestead. 

Curly's end is another story. Happily he was 
spared to me some years. 



[ 237 ] 



CHAPTER X 

THE THREE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK 

WE had just pulled the canoe out of the water 
and turned it over after a wet day in the 
bush across Giant's Lake, and were drying 
ourselves before the camp-fire, when Con taught a 
lesson and perpetrated a confidence. His keen, 
shrewd eyes twinkling, and a broad smile shortening 
his long, lean face till its great Roman nose and 
pointed chin were hobnobbing sociably together, the 
best hunter and guide on the Gatineau sat pouring 
boiling water through the barrel and into the inner- 
most holy of holies of the intricate lock mechanism of 
his .303 Winchester — to dry it out and prevent 
rusting from the wetting it had received in the bush. 
"Sure! youse never heerd of it before.'"' he asked 
in surprise. "Dryin' a gun with hot water's safest 
way to keep her from rustin'; carries out all th' old 
water hangin' round her insides 'n' makes her so 
damned hot Mr. Rust don't even have time to throw 
up a lean-to 'n' get to eatin' of her 'fore the new 
water 's all gone ; 'n' Mr. Rust can't get to eat none 
'thout water, no more 'n a deer can stay out of a salt 
lick, or Erne Moore can keep away from the habitaw 
[238] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

gals, or Tit Moody can get his own consent to stop 
his tongue waggin' off tales 'bout how women winks 
doAVTi t' Tupper Lake — when he 's rowin' 'em." 

" Should n't think such a little water as you have 
used would make the gun hot enough to dry it out," 
I suggested. 

" Hot ! Won't make her hot ! Why, she 's hotter 
now 'n Billy Buell got last October when that loony 
habitaw cook o' ourn made up all our marmalade and 
currant jelly into pies that looked 'n' bit 'n' tasted 
like wagon dope wropt in tough brown paper; hot! 
's hot this minute 's Elise Lievre's woman got last 
Spring when she heerd o' him a-sittin' up t' a Otter 
Lake squaw. Why, say! youse could n't no more 
keep a gun from rustin' in this wet bush 'thout hot 
water than Warry Hilliams can kill anything goin' 
faster than three-legged deer. 

" Rust ! Youse might 's well try to catch a habitaw 
goin' to a weddin' 'thout more ribbons on his bridle 
'n' harness than his gal has on her gown 's hunt for 
rust in a hot-watered gun ! " 

Catching a hint of a yarn, I asked if there were 
many three-legged deer in the bush. 

"W'an't but one ever, far 's I know," he replied. 
" 'N' almighty lucky it was for Warry that one come 
a-limpin' along his way, for it give him th' only chance 
he'll probably ever have to say he got to shoot a deer. 

"Warry.? Why he's jest the best ever happened 
[239] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

— 't least the best ever happened 'round this end o' 

the bush. Lives down to ; better not tell you 

right where he lives, for I've stirred up th' letters in 
his name, so 'f any of his friends heerd you tell th' 
story they won't know it 's on him; fer he 's jest that 
good I'd rather hurt anybody, 'cept my woman or 
bird, than hurt him. 

"Warry? Why, with a rod 'n' line 'n' reel, 
whether it 's with flies, spoons, or minnows, castin' or 
trollin', or spearin' or nettin', Warry 's th' ^j:pertest 
fish-catcher that ever waded the rapids or paddled th' 
lakes o' this old Province o' Quebec, But it 's gettin' 
g, leetle hard for Warry late years — fish 's come to 
know him so well that after he 's made a few casts 'n' 
hooked one or two that 's got away, they know his 
tricks so well they just passes the word round, 'n' it 's 
' pike ' for th' pike, ' beat it ' for th' bass, ' trot ' 
for th' trout, 'n' ' skip ' for the salmon, until now, 
after th' first day or two, 'bout all Warry can get in 
reach of 's mud turtles. 

"'N'd that 's what comes o' knowin' too much and 
gettin' too damned smart — nobody or nothin' left to 
play with! Warry? Why, say, if he'd only knowed 
it thirty or forty years ago, Warry had th' chance to 
live 'n' die with th' repute o' bein' th' greatest sport 
specialist that ever busted through the Quebec bush — ■ 
if he'd only jest kept to fishin'. But the hell o' it is, 
Warry 's always had a fool idee in his head he can 
[ 240 ] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

hunt, 'n' he can't, can't sort o' begin to hunt! 'N' 
darned if I could ever quite figure out why, 'n' him so 
smart, 'nless because he goes poundin' through the 
bush like a bunch o' shantymen to their choppin', 
with his head stuck in his stummick, studyin' some 
new trick to play on a trout, makin' so much noise th' 
deer must nigh laugh theirselves to death at him a- 
packin' o' a gun. 

"Hunt? Warry? Does he hunt? Sure, every 
year for th' last thirty years to my knowledge — only 
that's all; ho jest hunts, never kills nothin'. Least- 
ways he never did till three year ago, 'n' I ought t' 
know, for I always guides for him. Why, I mind one 
time he was stayin' over on the Kagama, he got so 
hungry for meat he up 'n' chunks 'n' kills 'n' cooks 
'n' eats a porcupine, th' p'rmiscous shootin' o' 
which is forbid by Quebec law, 'cause they're so slow 
a feller can run 'em down 'n' get 'em with a stick or 
stone, 'n' don't need t' starve just 'cause he 's got no 
gun. 

" Three years ago he'd been up for the fly fishin' 
in late June 'n' trollin' for gray trout in September, 
'n' then here he comes again th' last week in October 
t' hunt. 'N' she was the same old story : nothing do- 
ing! 

" I could set him on th' best runways, 'n' Erne 'n' 
me could dog th' bush till our tongues hung out 'n' 
we could hardly open our mouths 'thout barkin'; 
[Ml ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

could run deer past him till it must 'a looked — if he'd 
had a loose look about him — like a Gracefield hahitaw 
weddin' pr*cession, 'n' thar he'd set with his eyes fast 
on tlr end o' his gun, I guess, a-waitin' for a sign of a 
hite 'fore he'd jerk her up to try 'n' get somethin'. 
'N' the queerest part was, he seemed to enjoy it just 
*6 much 's if he'd brought down a three-hundred- 
pound buck to drag the wind out o' Erne 'n' me at th' 
end o' a tump-line. Most fellers 'd got mad 'n' cussed 
their luck. But not him — kindest, sweetest-tempered 
man I ever knew. Guess he knowed we'd done our 
best 'n' had some kind o' secret inside information 
that he had n't. 

"O' course, sometimes Warry'd get his gun off, but 
by that time th' deer had quit th' runway 'n' was in 
th' lake up to their bellies pullin' lily pads, or curled 
up in th' long grass o' a swale fast asleep. 

"But all fellers has a day sometime, if they lives 
long enough — though some o' them seems t' have t' 
get t' live a almighty long time t' get t' see it. At last 
Warry's came. 

" Erne 'n' me been doggin' a swamp where th' dead- 
fall tangle was so thick we was so nigh stripped o' 
clothes we could n't 'a gone t' camp if there'd been 
any women about. Drivin' toward where a runway 
crossed a neck 'tween two lakes, a neck so narrow two 
pike could scarce pass each other on it, there we'd 
sot Warry 't th' end o' th' neck. Jest 'fore we got t' 
[242] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

him we heard a shot, 'n' I remarked t' Erne, * Guesa 
th' old man thinks he 's got a bite.' 'N' then we broke 
through a thick bunch o' spruce ; 'n' we both nigh fell 
dead to see old Warry sawin' at th' throat o' a doe, 
tryin' t' 'pear 's natural 's if he'd never done nothin' 
else but kill 'n' dress deer. Mebbe Erne 'n' me wan't 
pleased none th' old man had made a kill ! 

"Erne was ahead; 'n' just as Warry rose up from 
th' throat-cuttin', Erne dropped into th' weeds 'n' 
rolled 'n' 'round holdin' o' his stummick, laughin' fit 
t' kill his fool self, till I thought he'd gone crazy. 
Then my eye lit on th' fore quarters o' th' doe, 'n' I 
guess I throwed more twists laughin' than Erne did — 
for that there doe was shy a leg, had n't but three 
legs ; nigh fore leg gone midway 'tween knee and dew- 
claw, shot off 'n' healed up Goda'mi'ty knows when ! 

"Warry? He did n't seem t' care none, too 
darned glad t' get anythin' shape o' a deer." 

That same evening one of us asked Con if he had 
ever run across any other mutilated game, recovered 
of old wounds. 

" Sure ! " he answered, " 'specially once when I 
was almighty glad to git it, 'n' a whole lot gladder 
still that nobody was 'round t' see 'n' know 'n' tell 
just what I got 'n' how I got it. She 's been a secret 
these five year; stuck t' her tighter 'n' Erne Moore 
holds th' gals down t' Pickanock dances, 'n' that 's 
closer 'n a burl on a birch. Fact is, I never told no- 
[243] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

body 'fore now; 'n' I would n't be telUn' it t' youse 
now, only just 'fore we come up here I got a letter 
from one o' th' two brothers we blindfolded, sayin' 
his brother was dead an' he goin' t' Californy t' live, 
'n' wa'n't comin' into th' bush no more. 

" If that feller got hold o' her, my brother 'n' me'd 
have t' go t' Australia or th' Cape, for him that 's still 
livin' 's just about 's mean a feller 's Warry 's a good 
one ; an' any little r^ute we've built up 's guides 'n' 
hunters, he'd put in th' rest o' his life tryin' t' smash 
's flat 's that fool habitaw cook got when Larry 
Adams sot on him for cookin' pa'tridges as soup. 
He'd just par'lyze her till we could n't even get a job 
goin' t' hunt 'n' fetch th' cows out o' a ten acre 
pasture. 'N' th' worst o' 't is I don't know that I'd 
blame him so almighty much for doin' it, for there 
was sure somethin' comin' t' us for foolin' them I 
don't believe we got yet. 

" Th' two o' them came up from across th' line — 
ain't goin' t' tell you what place they come from or 
even th' State — in late October, for th' two weeks 
dog-runnin' season; youse know there is only two 
weeks th' Quebec law lets us run hounds, 'thout a 
heavy fine. Never 'd seen either o' them before, but 
friends o' theirs we'd been guidin' for gave brother 'n' 
me a big recommend, 'n' they wrote up ahead 'n' hired 
us t' put up th' teams t' haul them 'n' their traps in, 
'n' then guide 'em. 

[ 244 ] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

" Soon 's they showed up on th' depot platform at 
Gracefield, I knowed brother 'n' me was up agin it 
hard. Train must 'a been a half-hour late gettin' to 
Maniwaki for th' time she lost unloadin' them two 
fellers' necessities for a two-weeks' deer hunt : 'bout a 
dozen gun cases, 'n' fishin' tackle 'nough for ten men, 
'n' trunks 'n' boxes that took three teams t' haul 'em 
out t' th' Bertrand farm. Fact is, them boxes held 
enough ca'tridges t' lick out another RIel rebellion 
'n' leave over 'nough t' run all th' deer 'tween Thirty- 
one Mile Lake 'n' the Lievre plumb north into James's 
Bay, for if there 's anythin' your average sportin' 
deer-hunters can be counted on for sure's death 'n' 
taxes, it 's t' begin throwin' lead, at th' rate o' about 
ten pound apiece a day, the minute they gets into th' 
bush, at rocks 'n' trees 'n' loons 'n' chipmucks — 
never killin' nothin' but their chance o' seein' a deer. 

"'N' these bloomin' beauties o' our'n was no excep- 
tion. Th' lead they wasted on th' two-mile portage 
from th' Government road t' th' lake would equip all 
the Injuns on the Desert Reservation for a winter's 
hunt. 

" Why, when Tom 'n' me got hold o' th' box they'd 
been takin' ca'tridges from t' heave her into the boat, 
she was so light, compared t' th' others we'd been 
handlin', we landed her plumb over th' boat in th' 
water ; 'n' damned if she did n't nigh float. She was 
th' only thing they had light 'nough t' even try t' 
[245] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

float, 'cept their own shootin', wliich sure was n't 
heavy 'nough t' sink none, 'n' could 'a fell out o' a 
canoe 'n' been picked up a week later bumpin' round 
with th' other worthless drift. 

" Took us a whole day to run their stuff over t' th' 
camp, 'n' it only a mile across th' lake from th' 
landin' ; 'n' when night come we was 's near dead beat 
's if we'd been portagin' a man's load apiece on a 
tump-line — 'n' that 's a tub o' pork 'n' a sack o' flour 
weighin' two hundred and seventy-five pounds — over 
every portage 'tween Pointe a Gatineau 'n' th' Baska- 
tong. 

" 0' course th' gettin' them fellers over theirselves 
was a easy diversion, they was that t' home 'bout a 
canoe ! Youse may not believe it, but after tryin' a 
half-hour 'n' findin' we could n't even get them into 
a canoe at th' landin' 'thout upsettin' or knockin' th' 
bottom outen her, we had t' help them into a thirty- 
foot 'pointer' made t' carry a crew o' eight shanty- 
men 'n' their supplies on the spring drives, 'n' then 
had t* pull our damnedest t' get them across th' lake 
'fore they upset her, jumpin' round t' shoot at some- 
thin' they could n't hit ! 

" 'N' eat ! Well, they ate a few. We was only out 
for two weeks, 'n' when we loaded th' teams 'peared t* 
me like we had 'nough feed for six months, but after 
th' first meal 't looked t' me like we'd be down t' eatin' 
what we could kill inside o' a week. Looked like no 
[246] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

human's stummick could hold all they put in their 
faces, 'n' brother, he said he thought their legs 'n' 
arms must be holler. 

" 'N' sleep ! When 't come t' wakin' of 'em up th' 
next mornin' they was like a pair o' bears that 'd 
holed up for th' winter, 'n' it nigh took violence t' get 
'em out at all. We started in runnin' th' hounds, 'n' 
brother 'n' me had the best on th' Gatineau — Frank 
'n' Loud, 'n' old Blue, 'n' Spot — dogs that can scent 
a deer trail 's far 's Erne Moore can smell supper 
cookin', 'n' that 's 's far from home 's Le Blanc 
farm his father used to own, over Kagama way, 'bout 
eight miles from Pickanock, where he lives. We run 
th' dogs for four days, 'n' it was discouragin', most 
discouragin'. Country was full o' deer when we was 
last out, three weeks before, 'n' th' dogs voiced 'n' 
seemed t' run plenty right down to 'n' past where we'd 
sot th' two on th' runways ; but they swore they never 
see nothin', said th' hounds been runnin' on old scent, 
sign made th' night before. 

"Then brother 'n' me took t' doggin' too, makin' 
six dogs, 'n' givin' us a chance t' see anythin' that 
jumped up in th' bush. Still nothin' came past 'em, 
they said, though we saw many a deer jump up out 
o' th' swamps 'n' go white flaggin' theirselves down 
th' runways toward the two 'hunters.' 

"We just could n't understand it 'n' made up our 
minds t' try 'n' find out why they never got t' see none. 
[ 247 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

" So the sixth day I placed one o' them myself on 
a runway half as wide 'n' beat most 's hard 's th' 
Government road, full o' fresh sign, picked a place 
where a big pine stump stood plumb in th' middle o' 
th' runway, 'n' sot him behind it where he had a open 
view thirty yards up th' runway th' direction we'd be 
doggin' from. 

"Then I let on t' break through th' bush t' th' 
swamp we was goin' t' dog, but 'stead o' that I only 
went a little piece 'n' left brother to start th' hounds 
at a time we'd arranged ahead, while I lay quiet be- 
hind a bunch o' balsam 'thin fifty yards o' my hunter. 
After 'bout twenty minutes, the time I was supposed 
t' need t' get t' th' place t' start th' hounds, I heard 
old Frank give tongue — must 'a struck a fresh trail 
th' minute he was turned loose. Then it wa'n't long 
'till th' other three began t' sing, runnin' 'n' singin' a 
chorus that's jest th' sweetest music on earth t' my 
ears. 

"Talk about your war 'n' patr'otic songs, your 
*Rule Britannias' 'n' * Maple Leaves,' your church 
hymns 'n' love songs, 'n' fancy French op'ras like 
they have down t' Ottawa that Warry Hilliams took 
me to wonst ! Why, say, do youse think any o' them 
is in it with a hound chorus, th' deep bass o' th' old 
hounds 'n' th' shrill tenor o' th' young ones — risin' 'n' 
swellin' 'n' ringin' through th' bush till every idle 
echo loafin' in th' coves o' th' ridges wakes up 'n' 
[ 248 ] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

joins in her best, 'n' you'd think all th' hounds in this 
old Province was runnin' 'n' chorusin' 'tween the Bubs 
'n' Mud Bay; 'n' then th' chorus dyin' down softer 
'n' softer till she 's low 'n' sweet 'n' sorta holy- 
soundin', like your own woman's voice chantin' t' your 
youngest — say, do youse think there 's any music in 
th' world 's good 's th' hounds make runnin'? 

" Well, I sot there behind th' balsams till th' dogs 
was drawin' near, 'n' then I slips softly through th' 
bush t' where I'd left Mr. Hunter; 'n' how do 
youse s'pose I found him, 'n' it no more'n half past 
seven in th' mornin'? Youse never 'd guess in a thou- 
sand year. I'll jest tump-line th' whole bunch o' 
youse 't one load from th' landin' 't' th' Bertrand 
farm if that feller wa'n't settin' with his back t' th' 
stump, facin' up th' runway, his rifle 'tween his knees 
'n' his fool head lopped over on one shoulder, dead 
asleep! No wonder they never see nothin', was it? 

"First I thought I'd wake him. Then I heard a 
deer comin' jumpin' down th' runway, 'n' knowin' 
'fore I could get him wide awake 'nough t' cock 'n' 
sight his gun th' deer'd be on us, I slipped up behind 
th' stump 'n' laid my rifle 'cross its top, th' muzzle not 
over a foot above his noddin' head. I was no more'n 
ready 'fore here come — a buck? No, I guess not, 
'cause they was jest crazy for some good buck heads ; 
no, jest a doe, but a good big one. Here she come 
boundin' along, her head half turned listenin' t' th' 
[249] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

dogs, 'n' never seein' him, he sot so still. When she 
got 'thin 'bout fifty feet I fired 'n' dropped her — 'n' 
then hell popped th' other side o' th' stump ! Guess 
he thought he was jumped by Injuns. Slung his gun 
one way 'n' split th' bush runnin' th' other, leapin' 
deadfalls 'n' crashin' through tangles so fast I had 
t' run him 'bout fifty acres t' get t' cotch 'n' stop him. 

"That feller was with us about ten days longer, 
but he never got time t' tell us jest what he thought 
was follerin' him or what was goin' t' happen if he 
got cotched. Likely 's not he'd be runnin' yet if I 
had n't collared him. 

" O' course they was glad at last t' get some veni- 
son — leastways youse'd think so t' see them stuffin' 
theirselves with it — but they never let up a minute 
round camp roastin' brother 'n' me for not runnin' 
them a buck ; swore that we had n't run 'em any was 
proved by my gettin' nothin' but th' doe. 

"Finally, they up 'n' wants t' still-hunt! Them 
still-hunt, that we could scarce get along the broadest 
runway 'thout makin' noises a deer'd hear half a 
mile! Still-hunt! Still-hunt, after we'd been run- 
nin' the hounds for a week and they'd shot off 'bout 
a thousand rounds o' ca'tridges round camp 'n' 
comin' back from doggin', till there wa'n't a deer 
within eight miles o' th' lake that wa'n't upon his 
hind legs listenin' where th' next bunch o' trouble was 
comin' from. But still-hunt it was for our'n, 'n' at 
[ 250 ] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

it we went for th' next two days. Don't believe we'd 
even 'a started, though, if we had n't known two days 
at th' most 'd cure them o' still-huntin'. Gettin' out 
'fore sun-up, with every log in th' brules frosted slip- 
pery 's ice, 'n' every bunch o' brush a pitfall, climbin' 
'n' slidin', jumpin' 'n' balancin', any 'n' every kind 
o' leg motion 'cept plain honest walkin', was several 
sizes too big a order for them. So th' second momin' 
out settled their still-huntin'. 

"Then they wanted brother 'n' me t' still-hunt — 
while they laid round camp, I guess, 'n' boozed, th' 
way they smelled 'n' talked nights when we got in. 

"'N' still-hunt we did, plumb faithful, 'n' hard 's 
ever in our lives when we was in bad need o' th' meat, 
for several days; 'n' would youse believe it.? We 
never got a single shot. Sometimes we saw a white 
flag for a second hangin' on top o' a bunch o' berry 
bushes — that was all ; most o' th' deer scared out o' 
th' country, 'n' th' rest wilder 'n Erne gets when 
another feller dances with his best gal. 

"Well, we just had t' give up 'n' own up beat. 
''N' Goda'mi'ty ! but did n't them two cheap imitation 
hunters tell us what they thought o' us pr'fessionals — 
said 'bout everything anybody could think of, 'cept 
cuss us. 'N' there was no doubt in our minds they 
wanted to do that. If they'd been plumb strangers, 
'stead o' friends o' one o' our parties, it's more 'n 
likely brother 'n' me'd wore out a pair o' saplings 
[251 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

over their fool heads, 'n' paddled off 'n' left them I' 
tump-line theirselves out o' th' bush. But I told 
brother 't was only a day or two more, 'n' we'd chew 
our own cheeks 'stead o' their ears. 

"Th' last day we had in camp they asked us t' 
make one more try with th' hounds. We took th' two 
ridges north o' th' shanty deer-lick 'n' drove west, 
with them on a runway sure to get a deer if there was 
any left t' start runnin'. Scarcely ten minutes after 
we loosed th' hounds I heard them stopped 'n' bayin', 
over on th' slope o' th' ridge brother was on, bayin' 
in a way made me just dead sure they had a bear. 

"Now a bear-kill, right then t' go home 'n' lie 
about, tellin' how they fit with it, would 'a suited our 
sham hunters better 'n a whole passle o' antlers; so 
I busted through th' bush fast as I could, fallin' 'n' 
rippin' my clothes nigh off — only t' find our hounds 
snappin' 'n' bayin' round a mighty big buck, that 
when I first sighted him, seemed to be jest standin' 
still watchin' th' hounds. Never saw a deer act that 
way before, 'n' him not wounded, 'n' nobody 'd shot. 
Jest could n't figure 't out at all. But I was so keen 
t' get them fellers a bunch o' horns I did n't stop t' 
study long what p'rsonal private reasons that buck 
had for stoppin' 'n' facin' th' hounds. 

"I was in the act o' throwin' my .303 t' my face, 
when brother hollered not t' shoot, 'n' t' come over t' 
him. 'N' by cripes ! while I was crossin' over t' 
[252] 



THE DOE AND THE BUCK 

brother, what in th' name o' all th' old hunters that 
ever drawed a sight do youse think I noted about that 
buck? Darned if that buck wa'n't blind — stone 
blind — blind 's a bat ! 

" Poor old warrior ! He'd stand with his head on 
one side listenin' t' th' hounds till he had one located 
close up, 'n' then he'd rear 'n' plunge at th' hound; 
'n' if there happened t' be a tree or dead timber in his 
way, he'd smash into it, sometimes knockin' himself 
a'most stiff. But when all was clear th' hounds stood 
no show agin him, blind as he was. Old Loud 'n' 
Frank, that naturally put up a better fight than th' 
young dogs, he tore up with his front hoofs so bad 
they like t' died. 

"Run th' buck knowed he could n't, 'n' there he 
stood at bay t' fight to a finish 'n' sell out dear 's he 
could. If it had n't been a real kindness t' kill him, 
I'd never 'a shot that brave old buck, 'n' left our 
hunters t' buy any horns they had t' have down t' 
Ottawa. But he was already pore 'n' thin 's deer 
come out in March, 'n' if we let him go 'd be sure t' 
starve or be ate by th' wolves. So I put a .303 be- 
hind his shoulder, 'n' brother 'n' me ran up 'n' 
chunked th' dogs off. 

"'N' what de youse think we found had blinded 
that buck.'' Been lately in a terrible fight with an- 
other buck. His head 'n' neck 'n' shoulders was 
covered with half-healed wounds where he'd been 
[253] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

gashed 'n' tore by th' other's horns 'n' hoofs; 'n' 
somehow in the fight both liis eyes'd got put out ! 
Guess when he lost his eyes th' other buck must a' 
been 'bout dead himself, or it'd a' killed him 'fore 
quittin'. 

" Then it hit brother 'n' me all of a heap that we'd 
be up agin it jest a leetle bit too hard t' stand if we 
hauled a blind buck into camp ; fellers 'd swear that 
t' get t' kill a buck at all brother 'n' me had t' range 
th' bush till we struck a blind one; 'n' then they'd 
probably want us t' go out 'n' see if we could n't find 
some sick or crippled 'nough so we could get to shoot 
'em. 

"Brother was for leavin' him 'n' sayin' nothin'; 
but th' old feller had a grand pair o' horns it seemed 
a pity t' lose, 'n' so I just drove a .303 sideways 
through his eyes ; 'n' when we got t' camp we 'counted 
for th' two shots in him by tellin' them he was circlin* 
back past us 'n' we both fired t' wonst. 

*' 'N' by cripes ! t' this day nobody but youse knows 
that Con Teeples dogged 'n' still-hunted th' bush for 
two weeks for horns 'thout killin' nothin' but a blind 
buck." 



[254] 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

ONE crisp winter morning a party of us left 
New York to spend tlie week end at the 
Lemon County Hunt Club. It was there I 
first met Sol, the dean of Lemon County hunters and 
for eight seasons the winner, against all comers, of 
the famous annual Lemon County Steeple Chase. At 
the hurdles, whether in the great public set events or 
in private contests, Sol was never beaten, while in the 
drag hunts it was seldom indeed he was not close up 
on the hounds from " throw-in " to " worry." 

To the Club Mews he had come under the tragic 
name of Avenger, but such was the marvellous equine 
wisdom he displayed that at the finish of his third hunt 
in Lemon County, he was rechristened Solomon by 
his new owner — soon shortened to Sol for tighter fit 
among sulphurous hunt expletives. At that night's 
dinner Sol and his deeds were the chief topic of con- 
versation and also its principal toast. And why not, 
when no hunting stable in the world holds a horse in 
all respects his equal? Why not toast a horse now 
twenty-six years old who has missed no run of the 
Lemon County hounds for the last eight years, never 
[255] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

for a single hunting-day off his feed or legs? Why 
not toast a horse that takes ordinary timber in his 
stride and eats up the stiffest stone walls for eight 
full hunting seasons without a single fall? Why not 
toast a horse with the prescience and generalship of 
a Napoleon, a horse who drives straight at all obsta- 
cles in a fair field, but who never imperils his rider's 
head beneath overhanging boughs ; who foresees and 
evades the " blind ditches " and other perils lurking 
behind hedges and walls, and who lands as steady and 
safe on ice as he takes off out of muck? Why not 
toast this venerable but still indomitable King of 
Hunters ? 

The next morning it was my privilege to meet him. 
In midwinter, he of course was not in condition. De- 
scriptions of his weird physique, and jests over his 
grotesquely large and ill-shaped head, made by half 
a dozen voluble huntsmen over post-prandial bottles, 
I thought had prepared me against surprise. Cer- 
tainly they had described such a horse as I had never 
seen. 

But having come to the door of his box, I was 
astounded to see slouching lazily in a corner with 
eyes closed, the nigh hip dropped low, a horse that at 
first glance appeared to be Don Quixote's Rosinante 
reincarnate, a gigantic " crowbait " with a head as 
long and coarse as an eighteen-hand mule's, an under 
lip pendulous as a camel's, drooping ears nearly long 
[256] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with such an 
Ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of 
face as would have enabled his head to supply the 
third of a nine-foot circle, a face curved as a scimitar 
and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions 
it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman- 
nosed equine head the maddest fancy could conceive. 

Slapped lightly on the quarter, Sol was instantly 
transformed. 

Eyes out of which shone wisdom preternatural in 
a horse, opened and looked down upon us with the 
calm questioning reproach one might expect from a 
rude awakening of the Sphinx; then the tall ears 
straightened and the great bulk rose to the full 
majesty of its seventeen hands; and while slats, hip 
bones, and shoulder blades were distressingly promi- 
nent, a glance got the full story of Sol's wonderful 
deeds and matchless record for safe, sure work. 

With massive, low-sloping shoulders, tremendous 
quarters, exceptionally short of cannon bone and 
long from hock to stifle as a greyhound; with a 
breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the 
withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, 
behind the throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary 
perfection, all the best points of a thoroughbred 
hunter that make for speed, jumping ability, and 
endurance. 

And as he so stood, a flea-bitten, speckled white in 
[257] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

color, he looked like a section out of the main snowy 
range of the Rocky Mountains : the two wide-set ears 
representing the Spanish Peaks; his sloping neck 
their northern declivity ; his high withers, sharply out- 
lined vertebras, and towering quarters the serrated 
range crest ; his banged tail a glacier reaching down 
toward its moraine! 

Sol needed exercise, and that afternoon I was per- 
mitted the privilege of riding him. Mounted from 
a chair and settled in the saddle, I felt as if I must 
surely be bestriding St. Patrick's Cathedral. But at 
a shake of the reins the parallel ceased. His pas- 
terns were supple as an Arab four-year-old's, his 
muscles steel springs. 

Myself quite as gray as Sol and, relatively, of 
about the same age, as lives of men and horses go, we 
early fell into a mutual sympathy that soon ripened 
into a fast friendship. At Christmas I returned to 
the Club to spend holiday week, in fact sought the 
invitation to be with Sol. Every day we went out 
together, Sol and I, morning and afternoon. Bright, 
warm, open winter days, so soon as the spin he loved 
was finished, I slid off him, slipped the bit from his 
mouth (leaving head-stall hanging about his neck), 
and left him free to nibble the juicy green grasses of 
some woodland glade and, between nibble times, to 
spin me yarns of his experiences. For the subtle sym- 
pathy that existed between us — sprung of our trust 
[ 258 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

in one another, and sublimated in the heat of our 
mutual affection — had sharpened our perceptions 
until intellectual inter-communication became possible 
to us. I know Sol understood all I told him, and I 
don't think I misunderstood much he told me. So 
here is his tale, as nearly as I can recall it. 

"Ye know I'm Irish, and proud of it. It's there 
they knew best how to make and condition an able 
hunter. No pamperin', softenin' idleness in box 
stalls or fat pastures, or light road-joggin', goes in 
Ireland between huntin' seasons. It 's muscle and 
wind we need at our trade in Ireland, and neither can 
be more than half diviloped in the few weeks' light 
conditionin' work that all English and most American 
cross-country riders give their hunters. Steady 
gruellin' work is what it takes to toughen sinews and 
expand lungs, and it 's the Irish huntsman that knows 
it. So between seasons we drag the ploughs and pull 
the wains, toil at the rudest farm tasks, and thus are 
kept in condition on a day's notice to make the run 
or take the jump of our lives. 

"Humiliatin'P Hardly, when we find it gives us 
strength and staying power to lead the best the shires 
can send against us : they've neither power nor stom- 
ach to take Irish stone and timber. 

" 'It 's a royal line of blood, his,' I've often heard 
Sir Patrick say ; ' a clean strain of the best for a 
hundred years, by records of me own family. His 
[259] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

head? There was never a freak in the line till he 
came; and where the divil and by what misbegotten 
luck he came by it is the mystery of Roscommon. 
And it 's by that same token we call him Avenger, for 
no sneerin' stranger ever hunted with him that did n't 
get the divil's own peltin' with clods off his handy 
Irish heels.' 

"And the head groom had it from the butler and 
passed it on to me that the old Master of the Roscom- 
mon Hounds was ever swearin' over his third bottle, 
of hunt nights, when I was no more than a five-year- 
old and the youngsters would be fleerin' at Sir Pat 
over the shape of me head : 

" 'Faith, an' it 's Avenger's head ye don't like, lads, 
is it? By the powers o' the Holy Virgin but it 's me 
pity ye have that none of ye can show the likes in 
your stables. By the gray mare that broke King 
Charlie's neck, it 's the head of him holds brains 
enough to distinguish ten average hunters, brains no 
ordinary brain-pan could hold ; an' it 's a brain-box 
shape of a shot sock makin' the disfigurin' hump be- 
low his eyes ! It 's a four-legged gineral is Avenger, 
with the cunnin' foresight of a Bonaparte and the cool 
judgment of a Wellington.' 

"Ah! but they were happy days on the old sod, 

buckin' timber, flyin' over brooks, stretchin' over 

stone or lightin' light as bird atop of walls too broad 

to carry and springin' on, with a good light-handed 

[260] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

man up that knew his work and left ye free to do 
yours ! And a sad night it was for me when Sir Pat, 
stripped by years of gambling of all he owned but 
the clothes he stood in and me, staked and lost me to 
a hunt visitor from Quebec ! 

"I was a youngster then, only a nine-j-ear-old, but 
I'll niver forget the two weeks run from Queenstown 
to Quebec whereon huntin' tables were reversed and I 
became the rider and the ship me mount, across coun- 
try the roughest hunter ever lived through: niver a 
moment of easy flat goin', but an endless series of 
gigantic leaps that nigh jouted me teeth loose, churned 
me insides till they would n't even hold dry feed, and 
gave me more of a taste than I liked of what I had 
been givin' Roscommon huntsmen over lane side wall 
jumps — a rise and a jolt, a rise and a jolt, till it 
was wonderin' I was the ears were not shaken from 
me head. 

"Humiliation? It was there at Quebec I got it! 
In old Roscommon usually it was lords and ladies 
rode me of hunt days, men and women bred to the 
game as I meself was. 

" But at Quebec, the best — and I had the best — 
were beefy members of their dinkey Colonial Govern- 
ment or fussy, timid barristers I had to carry on me 
mouth. Seldom it was I carried a good pair of hands 
and a cool head in me nine years' runnin' with the 
Quebec and Montreal hounds. And lucky the same 
[261] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

was for me, for it forced me to take the bit in me 
teeth, rely on meself, and regard me rider no more 
than if he were a sack of flour: I jist had it to do to 
save me own legs and me rider's neck, for to run by 
their reinin' and pullin' would have brought us a 
cropper at about two out of every three obstacles. 
Faith, and I believe it 's an honest leaper's luck I've 
always had with me, anyway, for me Quebec work 
was jist what I needed to train me for an honorable 
finish with the Lemon County Yankees. 

"One Autumn night years ago, when I was eigh- 
teen, a clever young Yankee visitor from New York 
appeared at our club. For two days I watched his 
work on other mounts, and liked it. He was good 
as any two-legged product of the old sod itself, a 
handsome youngster a bit heavier than Sir Pat, a 
reckless, deep drinkin', hard swearin', straight ridin' 
sort, but with a head and hands ye knew in a minute 
ye could trust, by name Jack Lounsend. The third 
hunt after his arrival, it was me delight to carry 
him, and for the first time in years to allow me rider 
his will of me. And you can bet your stud and gear, 
I gave him the best I had, for the sheer love of him, 
and him so near the likes of me dear Sir Pat. 

"Nor was me work to go unvalued, for, to me 
great delight, he bought me and brought me to the 
States — straight away to Lemon County — along 

[ 262 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

with two of me huntmates he fancied. And a sweet 
country I found this same Lemon County, with tim- 
ber and stone nigh as stiff, and sod as sound as old 
Roscommon's own. 

"But troubles lay ahead of me I'd not foreseen. 
Instead of goin' into Jack's private string, as I'd 
hoped, the early record I made for close finishes and 
safe, sure work made me wanted by the chief patron 
of the hunt, a New York multi-railroad-aire with a well 
diviloped habit of gettin' everything he goes after. 
So, while I venture to believe Jack hated to part with 
me, the patron got me. 

"And a good man up the patron himself proved, 
one I'd always be proud enough to carry ; but, as Jack 
used to say, the hell of it was the Lemon County Hunt 
numbered more bunglin' duffers than straight riders, 
the sort a youngster or a hot-head would be sure to 
kill. 

" So when, as often happened, the patron was busy 
with faster runs and a hotter "worry" than our 
hunt afforded, it frequently fell to me lot to carry the 
half-broke of all ages, seldom a one bridle-wise to our 
game, as sure to pull me at the take-off of a leap as 
to give me me head on a run through heavy mud, the 
sort no horse could carry and finish dacently with ex- 
cept by takin' the bit in his teeth and himself makin' 
the runnin'. And even so, it was a tough task fightin' 

[263] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

their rotten heavy hands and loose seat! But, by 
the glory of old Roscommon, never once have I been 
down in me eight years with the Lemons ! 

" Once, to be sure, on me first run, by the way, I 
slashed into one of your brutal wire fences, the first 
I'd ever seen — looked a filmy thing you could smash 
right through — caught a shoe in it, and nigh 
wrenched a shoulder blade in two. Sure, I never lost 
me feet, but it laid me up a few days ; and you can 
gamble any odds you like no wire has ever caught me 
since ; and, more, that I now hold record as the only 
horse in the County that takes wire as readily as tim- 
ber, where it 's necessary — though sure it is I'll dodge 
for timber every time where I won't lose too much in 
place. 

"Down they'd come to Lemon County, a lot of 
those New York beauties, men and women, togged out 
so properly you'd think they'd spent their whole lives 
in the huntin' field ; but at the first obstacle you'd see 
their faces go white as their stocks, and then all over 
you they'd ride from tail to ears, their arms sawin' at 
your mouth fit to rip your under jaw off, like they 
thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for. 
And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back 
till the hounds were mere glintin' specks flyin' across 
a distant hill-crest, the riders' red coats noddin' pop- 
pies ; back till only faint echoes reached them of the 
swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; 
[ 264 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

back for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will 
of, — for rider never lived could hold me to the wrong 
jump or throw me from my stride, nor was fence ever 
built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe 
on it. 

"Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself 
could n't hold me, whether it 's the short, sharp war- 
cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep bell-notes of these 
Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a mourn- 
ful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it 's the faster Irish 
hounds that make the grandest runnin', but it 's the 
deep-throated, mellow chorus of a Yankee pack I love 
best to hear. 

" Nouveaux riches, whatever kind of bounders that 
spells, is what Bob Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers 
New York sends us ; and whenever the patron is out 
or Jack has his way, it 's niver one of them I'm dis- 
graced with. 

"Sometimes it's me good old Jack up; sometimes 
hard swearin', straight goin' Bob ; sometimes little 
Raven, as true a pair of hands and light and tight a 
seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as 
reckless as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to 
carry when I was a five-year-old, with a ring in his 
swears, a stab in his heels, and a cut in his crop that 
can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the best 
and freshest can take ; sometimes it 's Priest, that with 
the language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he'll 
[265] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

hold a tired one to but ill desarves the holy name he 
wears ; and sometimes — my happiest times — it 's a 
daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and 
the nerve and seat of a veteran. 

*' Horse or human, it 's blood that tells every time, 
me word for that. Be they old or young, you can 
niver mistake it. Can't stop anything with good 
blood in it — gallops straight, takes timber in its 
stride, and finishes smartly every time. Know it may 
not, but it balks at nothing, sets its teeth and drives 
ahead till it learns. 

"And perhaps that was n't driven well home on me 
last Fall! 

"Out to us came a little woman, a scant ninety- 
pounder I should say, so frail she would n't look safe 
in a drag, and a good bit away on the off side of mid- 
dle age; but the mouth of her had a set that showed 
she'd never run off the bit in her life, and her eye — 
my eye ! but she had an eye, did that woman. And it 
was hell-bent to hunt she was, bound to follow the 
hounds, though all she knew of a saddle came of five- 
mile-an-hour jogs along town park bridle paths, and 
all her hands looked fit for was holdin' a spaniel. 

"Well, it was Lory and Priest took her on, turn 
about, usually me that carried her, and it was break 
her slender little neck I thought the divils would in 
spite of me. Took her at everything and spared her 
nowhere, bowled her along across meadow and furrow, 
[ 266 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

over water, timber, and walls, like she was a lusty five- 
year-old, and all the time a guyin' her in a way to take 
the heart out of anything but a thoroughbred. ' Don't 
mind the fence !' Lory would sing out, ' if you get a 
fall, just throw your legs in the air and keep kickin' 
to show you're not dead; we never want to stop for 
any but the dead on this hunt.' And smash on my 
quarters would come her crop, and on we'd go ! 

" Again, when we'd be nearin' a fence across which 
two were scramblin' up from croppers. Lory would 
brace her with: 'Don't git scared at that smoke 
across the fence ; it 's nothin' but the boys that 
could n't get over burnin' up their chance of salva- 
tion ! ' And into me slats her little heel would sock 
the steel, and high over the timber I'd lift her for sheer 
joy of the nerve of her ! 

" But it was not always me that had her. One 
day I saw a cold-blood give her a fall you'd think 
would smash the tiny little thing into bran; landed so 
low on a ditch bank he could n't gather, and up over 
his head she flew and on till I thought she was for 
takin' the next wall by her lonesome. And when 
finally she hit the ground it was to so near bury her- 
self among soft furrows that it looked for a second 
as if she'd taken earth like any other wily old fox 
tired of the runnin'. 

" But tired ? She ? Not on your bran mash ! Up 
ghe springs like a yearlin' and asks Lory is her hat 
[ 267 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

on straight — which it was, straight up and down over 
her nigh ear. ' Oh, damn your hat,' answers Lory ; 
' give us your foot for a mount if you're not rattled. 
Why, next year you'll be showin' your friends holes 
in the ground on this hunt course you've dug with your 
own head!' And up it was for her and away again 
on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods 
make it a shame they're ever called hunters. Fall 
the best must, one day or another; but while the 
thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his 
feet and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider 
time to fall free if down he must go, the cold-blood 
falls loose and flabby as an empty sack, and he and 
his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked them 
off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a 
true thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up 
on cold or hot blood, along she'd drive at anything 
those two hare-brained dare-devils would point her at, 
spur diggin', crop splashin' ! 

" Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times 
the lads are always larkin' and puttin' up games on 
each other out of the stock of divilment that won't 
keep till the next run, each never quite so happy as 
when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a 
wager. 

" One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's 
place. 

" ' Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up 
[268] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

to ? ' sings out Lory to Raven, the minute we stopped 
at his porch. 

"'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some 
help of you.' 

" ' Give it a name,' says Lory. 

" 'Easy,' says Raven ; ' the master 's got a new fad 
— crazy to mount the hunt on white horses. I've 
old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy white ones 
for the two whips, but where to get a wliite mount 
for Jack stumps us. Jogged over to see if you could 
help us out.' 

" Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west 
across his spring lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his 
eye, and followin' the line of his glance, there slouchin' 
in a fence corner I saw Lory's old white work-mare, 
Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the 
little Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower 
for hers. I'd heard Lory say she was eighteen years 
old and that once she was gray, but now she 's white 
as a first snow-fall. 

'"How would old gray Molly do. Raven.'" pres- 
ently asks Lory. 

" ' Do ? Has she ever hunted ? ' asks Raven. 

" ' Divil a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' 
says Lory ; ' never had a saddle on, as far as I know, 
but she has the quarters and low sloping shoulders of 
a born jumper, and it 's you must admit it. Let 's 
have a look at her.' 

[269] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

" So out across the spring lot the three of us went, 
to the corner where Molly was dozin'. And true for 
Lory it was, the old lady had fine points ; when lightly 
slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a 
good bit of action. 

" ' She 's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven ; 
' where did you get her. Lory ? ' 

*' 'Had her twelve years,' says Lory; 'brought her 
on from my Wyoming ranch; she and a skullful of 
experience and a heartful of disappointment made up 
about all two bad winters left of my ranch invest- 
ments. The freight on her made her look more like 
a back-set than an asset, but she was a link of the 
old life I could n't leave.' 

" 'Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, ' and if 
she'll run a bit and jump, we may have some fun 
passin' her up to Jack.' 

" So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled 
and mounts, and I hope never to have another rub- 
down if she did n't gallop off like she'd never done any- 
thing else — stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground 
fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a 
fair pace. Then we went into a narrow lane and I 
gave her a lead over some low bars, and here came 
game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences 
and her were old stable-mates. 

" *Well, I will be damned,' says Raven; ' she 's a 
hoary wonder. Give her a week of handlin' and trim 
[ 270 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at a stiff price ; 
he 's so bent on liis fad, he'll take a chance on her age.' 

" And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laugh- 
ter in the house with them, while I began tippin' Molly 
a few useful points at the game as soon as the groom 
left us in adjoinin' stalls. 

" Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the 
hunt-club mews, and if I'd not been on to their mis- 
chievous plot, I'll be fired if I'd known her. It was 
a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, 
hogged her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her 
hoofs, groomed, fed up, and conditioned her, and (I 
do believe) polished her yellow old fangs, till she 
looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see. 

"And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and 
stalled, into an empty box alongside of me slips Lory 
with Tom, the best whip and seat of our hunt, and says 
Lory: *You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, 
Tom.' 

"'Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; 'hall in the 
day's work.' 

" ' Well, if you'll give the old gray mare a week's 
practice at wall and timber, gettin' out early when 
none but the sun and the pair of you are yet up, I'll 
give you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my 
place the other day. But mind, it 's your neck she 
may break at the first wall, for I've niver taken her 
over anything much higher than a pig sty.' 
[2T1] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

" 'Right-o, sir,' saj^s Tom; 'an' there 's any jump 
in the old girl, I'll git it out of 'er.' 

"The next Saturday afternoon, the biggest meet 
of the season, up rides that divil of a Lory on Molly, 
him in a brand-new suit of ridin' togs and her heavy- 
curbed and martingaled like she was a wild four-year- 
old, the pair lookin' so fine I scarce knew the man or 
Raven the mare. 

"'Hi! there, Lory!' says Raven; 'wherever did 
you get the corkin' white un ? ' 

" ' Sh-h-h ! you damn fool,' says Lory. 

" 'The hell you say! ' whispers Raven, reins aside, 
chucklin' low to the two of us, and with a knee-press 
which I knew meant, ' Sol, jist you watch 'em ! ' 

"And we were no more than turned about when 
up rides the master, Jack, both ears pointin' Molly, 
and says : 

" 'Good-looker you have there. Lory. New pur- 
chase ? ' 

" ' No, indeed,' says Lory ; ' old hunter I've had 
some years; brought her on from the West; just up 
off grass and not quite prime yet ; guess she'll finish, 
though.' 

"Think of it — the nerve of the divil — and him 
knowin' she was more likely to finish at the first fence 
than ever to reach the check! For the day's course 
was a full ten-mile run, and a check was laid half way 
for a blow or a change of mounts. 
[ 272 ] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

" Presently the hounds opened at the ' throw-in,' an 
Irish pack it takes near a steeplechase pace to stay 
with, and we were off on as stiff a course as even 
Lemon County can show. And a holy miracle was 
Lory's ridin' that day. For nigh four miles he held 
tight behind two duffers who, while up on top-notch- 
ers, pulled their mounts so heavily that they took a 
top rail off nearly every fence they rose to and swerved 
for low wall-gaps, till he'd got Molly's nerve up a bit. 
Then, takin' a chance on the last mile, Lory threw 
crop and spur into her and raced straight ahead, 
liftin' her over wall and timber to try the best, until 
close up on Jack. Just then Jack turned and 
watched them, just as they were approachin' a heavy 
four-foot jump, a broad stone wall and ditch. Sure, 
I thought it was all up with Lory, but at it he hurled 
her, and I'll be curbed if she did n't take it as cleverly 
as I could. 

"Old Molly finished third at the check, but at 
the expense of a pair of badly torn and bleedin' knees, 
got scrapin' over stone and wood, which that rascal 
of a Lory hid by swervin' to a white clay bank and 
plasterin' her wounds with the clay, and then she was 
led away by his groom. 

" Joggin' back from the ' worry ' that evenin'. Jack 
lay tight in Lory's flank till Lory had consented, ap- 
parently with great reluctance, to sell him Molly for 
five hundred dollars. 

[ 273 ;i 



THE RED-BLOODED 

"The very next week, Jack, Raven, and the two 
whips turned out on white hunters. Jack of course 
upon Molly and happy over the successful workin' out 
of his fad. But good old Jack's happiness was short- 
lived, for after the ' throw-in ' he was not seen again of 
the hunt that day. The first fence Molly negotiated 
in fine style, but at the second she came a terrible 
cropper that badly jolted Jack and knocked every last 
ounce of heart out of her, cowed her so completely 
that she'd be in that same meadow yet if there'd not 
been a pair of bars to lead her through, and divil a 
man was ever found could make her try another jump. 

"Great was the quiet fun of Lory and Raven, 
though Lory's lasted little longer than Jack's joy of 
his white mount. Of course Jack was too game to let 
on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen 
a rowel for Lory. 

" And the rankest wonder it was Lory niver saw it 
till Jack had him raked from flank to shoulder — 
just stood and took it without a blink, like a donkey 
takes a lash. 

"Within a week of Molly's downfall Lory was out 
on me one day, when up rides Jack and says : 

"'There's a splendid hunter in me stable I want 
ye to have, Lory. Got more than I can keep, and 
your stable must be a bit shy since you parted with 
the white mare. He 's the bay seventeen-hander in the 
Irish lot. Stands me over a thousand, but you can 
[274] 



THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT 

have him at your own price ; don't want the hardest, 
straightest rider of the hunt shy of fit meat and bone 
to carry him.' 

"Belikes it was the blarney caught him, but any- 
way Lory buried his muzzle in Jack's pail till he could 
see nothin' but what Jack said it held, and took the 
bay at six hundred dollars just on a casual look-over. 

"It was good action, a grand jumpin' form, and 
rare pace the bay showed on a short try-out that af- 
ternoon, so much so I overheard Lory tellin' himself, 
when he was after dismountin' just outside me box: 
'Gad ! but ajn't old Jack easy money ! ' 

"But when Lory and the bay showed up at the 
next day's meet, I noticed the bay's ears layin' back 
or workin' in a way to tell any but a blind one it was 
dirty mischief he was plannin'. Nor was he long 
playin' it. For about a third of the run the bay raced 
like a steeplechaser tight on the heels of the hounds, 
leadin' even the master, for Lory could no more hold 
him than his own glee at the grand way they were 
takin' gates and walls. But suddenly that bay divil's- 
spawn swerves from the course, dashes up and stops 
bang broadside against a barn ; and there, with ears 
laid back tight to his head and muzzle half upturned, 
for four mortal hours the bay held Lory's off leg 
jammed so tight against the barn that, rowel and 
crop-cut hard as he might, the only thing Lory was 
able to free was such a flow of language, it was a holy 
[275] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

wonder Providence did n't fire the barn and bum up 
the pair of them. 

"And as Jack passed them I heard the divil sing 
out : ' Ha ! Ha ! Lory ! 't was the gray mare wanted to 
jump but couldn't, and it's the bay can jump but 
won't! It 's an " oh hell!" for you and a "ha! ha!" 
for me this time ! ' 

"Which, while they're still fast friends, was the 
last word ever passed between them on the subject of 
the funker and the balker. 



[276 J 



CHAPTER XII 

EL TI6BE 

A CAT may look at a king, but the son of a vil- 
lage lawyer may not venture to bare his heart 
to the daughter of the Duque de la Tor- 
revieja. And yet a man of our blood was ennobled 
early in the wars with the Moors, while the Duke's 
forebears were still simple men-at-arms, knighted 
under a name that in itself carries the ring of the 
heroic deeds that earned it." 

The speaker, Mauro de la Lucha-sangre (literally 
"Mauro of the Bloody Battle"), stood one June 
morning of 1874 beneath the shade of a gnarled olive- 
tree on the banks of the Guadaira River, rebelliously 
stamping a heel into the soft turf. Son of the fore- 
most lawyer of his native town of Utrera, educated in 
Sevilla at the best university of his province, already 
at twenty-four himself a fully accredited licenciado, 
Mauro's future held actually brilliant prospects for a 
man of the station into which he was bom. And 
yet, most envied of his classmates though he was, to 
Mauro himself the future loomed black, forbidding, 
cheerless. 

Mauro's father, by legacy from his father, was the 
[277] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

attorney and counsellor of the Duque de la Torre- 
vieja; and so might Mauro have been for the next 
Duke had there not cropped out in him the daring, 
the love of adventure, the pride, and the confidence 
that had lifted the first Lucha-sangre above his fel- 
lows. It was a case of breeding back — away back 
over and past generations of fawning commoners to 
the times when Lucha-sangre swords were splitting 
Moorish casques and winning guerdons. 

Nor in spirit alone was Mauro bred back. He was 
deep of chest, broad of shoulder, lithe and graceful. 
His massive neck upbore a head of Augustan beauty, 
lighted by eyes that alternately blazed with the pride 
and resolution of a Cid and softened with the musings 
of a Manrique. Mauro was a Lucha-sangre of the 
twelfth century, reincarnate. 

Little is it to be wondered at that, as the lad was 
often has father's message-bearer to the Duke, he 
found favor in the eyes of the Duke's only daughter, 
Sofia ; and still less is it to be wondered at that he early 
became her thrall. Of nights at the university he 
was ever dreaming of her; up out of his text-books 
her lovely face was ever rising before him in class. 

Of a rare type was Sofia in Andalusia, where nearly 
all are dark, for she was a true ruhia, blue of eye, fair 
of skin, and with hair of the wondrously changing 
tints of a cooling iron ingot. 

And now here was Mauro, just back from Sevilla, 
[278] 



^W:' 






EL TIGRE 

almost within arm's-reach of his divinity, and yet not 
free to seek her. And as the ripphng current of the 
Guadaira crimsoned and then reddened and darkened 
till it seemed to him like a great ruddy tress of Sofia's 
waving hair, Mauro sprang to his feet and fiercely 
whispered: "Mil demonios! but she shall at least 
know, and then I'll kiss the old padre and his musty 
office good-bye and go try my hand at some man's 
task!" 

Opportunity came earlier than he had dared hope. 
The very next morning the elder Lucha-sangre sent 
Mauro to the castle with some papers for the Duke's 
approval and signature. Still at breakfast, the Duke 
received him in the great banquet-hall of the castle, the 
walls covered with portraits of Torreviejas gone be- 
fore, several of the earlier generations so dim and 
gray with age they looked mere spectres of the lim- 
ner's art. 

While the Duke was reading the papers, Mauro 
stood with eyes riveted to the newest portrait of them 
all, that of Sofia's mother — Sofia's very self ma- 
tured — herself a native of a northern province 
wherein to this day red hair and blue eyes are a fre- 
quent, almost a prevailing type, that tell the story of 
early Gothic invasions. So absorbed in the picture, 
so completely possessed by it was Mauro, that when 
the Duke turned and spoke to him, he did not hear. 

And so he stood for some moments while the Duke 
[ 279 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

sat contemplating the fine lines of his face and the 
splendid pose of his figure ; his eyes lightened with 
admiration, his head nodding approval. 

Then gently touching Mauro's arm, the Duke 
queried: "And so you admire the Duchess, young 
man ? " 

With a start Mauro answered, after a dazed stare 
at the Duke: "A thousand pardons, Excellency! 
But yes, sir; who in all the world could fail to admire 
her?" 

"Yes; yes," replied the Duke; "God never made 
but one other quite her equal, and her He made in her 
own very image — Sofia ; que Dios la aguarda!" 

Mauro gravely bowed, received the papers from 
the Duke, and withdrew. 

Turning to his secretary, the Duke sighed deeply 
and murmured: "Dios mio! if only I had a son of 
my own blood like that boy ! What a pity he should 
be tied down to paltry pettifoggery ! " 

Meantime Mauro, striding disconsolate past an 
angle of the narrow garden of the inner courtyard, 
was detained by a soft voice issuing from the seclusion 
of a bench beneath the drooping boughs of an ancient 
fig tree : " Buenos dias, Don Mauro. Bueno es verte 
revuelfo." 

" Buenos dias, Condesa; and it is indeed good to me 
to be back, good to hear thy voice — the first real hap- 

[ 280 ] 



EL TIGRE 

piness I have known since my ears last welcomed its 
sweet tones. Good to be back! ah! Condesa Sofia, 
for me it is to live again." 

" But, Don Mauro — " 

"A thousand pardons, Condesa, but thy duenna 
may join thee at any moment, and my heart has long 
guarded a message for thee it can no longer hold and 
stay whole, — a message thou mayest well resent for 
its gross presumption, and yet a message I would 
here and now deliver if I knew I must die for it the 
next minute. 

" From childhood hast thus possessed me. Never 
a night for the last ten years have I lain down with- 
out a prayer to the Virgin for thy safety and happi- 
ness ; never a day but I have so lived that my conduct 
should be worthy of thee. Though I am the son of 
thy father's licenciado, thou well knowest the blood of 
a long line of proud warriors burns in my veins. 
Hope that thou mightst ever even deign to listen to 
me I have never ventured to cherish — " 

" But, Don Mauro — " 

" Again a thousand pardons, Condesa, but I must 
tell thee thou art the light of my soul. Without thee 
all the world is a valley of bitterness ; with thee its 
most arid desert would be an Eden. The birds are 
ever chanting to me thy name. Every pool reflects 
thy sweet face. Every breeze wafts me the fragrance 

[281 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

of thy dear presence. Every thunderous roll of the 
Almighty's war-drums calls me to attempt some great 
heroic deed in thine honor, some deed that shall prove 
to thee the lawyer's son, in heart and soul if not in 
present station, is not unworthy to tell to thee his love. 
And — " 

"But, Mauro, Mauro m mio!'' And with a 

sob she rose and actually fled through the shrubbery. 

Two days later the betrothal of the Countess Sofia 
to the Count Leon, eldest son and heir to the Duke 
de Oviedo, was announced by her father. And that, 
indeed, was what she had tried but lacked the heart 
to tell him — tliat, wherever her heart might lie, her 
f atlier had already promised her hand ! 

It was a bitter night for Mauro, that of the an- 
nouncement, and a sad one for his father. Their 
conference lasted till near morning. The son pleaded 
he must have a life of action and hazard ; liis country 
at peace, he would train for the bull ring. 

*• Why not the opera, my son?" the thrifty father 
replied. " Thou hast a grand tenor voice ; indeed the 
Bishop has asked that thou wilt lead the choir of the 
Cathedral. With such a voice thou wouldst have ac- 
tion, see the world, gain riches, wliile all the time 
playing the parts, fighting the battles of some great 
historic character." 

" But no, father," answered Mauro ; " such be no 

[282] 



EL TIGRR 

more than sham fights. Not only must I wear a sword 
as did the early Lucha-sangres, but I must hear it 
ring and ring against that of a worthy foe, feel it 
steal within the cover of his guard, see the good blade 
drip red in fair battle. True, there be no Moors or 
French to fight, but what soldier on reddened field ever 
took greater odds than a lone espada takes every time 
he challenges a fierce Utrera bull.'' And I swear to 
thee, padre mio, whatever my calling, I shall ever be 
heedful of and cherish the motto that Lucha-sangre 
swords have always borne: "Xo me sacas sin razon; 
no me metes sin honor" (Do not draw me without 
good cause ; do not sheath me without honor !) 

The less strong-minded of the two, the father 
yielded, and even furnished funds sufficient for a 
year's private tutoring by Frascuelo, then the great- 
est matador in all Spain. 

Thus the first time Mauro ever appeared before a 
public assembly was as chief espada of a cuadrilla of 
his own, at Valladolid. An apt pupil from the start, 
bent upon reaching the highest rank, of extraordinary 
strength and activity, utterly fearless but cool headed, 
a natural general, at the close of his first corrida he 
was acclaimed the certain successor of the great Fras- 
cuelo himself, and at the same time christened El 
Tigre (the Tiger) for the feline swiftness of his move- 
ments and the ferocity of his attacks. 

[ 283 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

The next eight years were for El Tigrc fruitful of 
ftvnie and riches but utterly arid and barren of even 
the most casual feminine attachment. Well educated, 
clever, with the manners of a courtier, and witJi 
physical beauty and personal charm few men equalled, 
lie was invited by the nobility often, received as an 
equal by the men and literally courted by the women. 
But the attentions of women were all to no purpose. 
For EJ Tigrc only one woman existed — Sotia, now 
the Duchess de Oviedo — though he had never again 
set eyes on her from the hour of their parting beneatli 
the fig tree. 

Owners of large Mexican sugar estates in the valley 
of Cuautla, tlie Duke and Sofia divided their time be- 
tween Paris and Mexico. Their marriage was far 
from happy. Before their union, busy tongues had 
brought Count Leon rumors of her admiration for 
Mauro, rousing suspicions that were not long crystal- 
lizing into certainty that, while she was a faithful, 
honest wife, he could never win of her the affection 
he gave and craved. Obviously proud of her, always 
devoted and kind, he received from her respect and 
consideration in return, which indeed was all she had 
to give, for the loss of Mauro remained to her an 
ever-gnawing grief. 

Oddly enough, fate decreed that the destiny of 
Mauro and Sofia should be worked out far afield from 
[284] 



EL TIGRE 

their burning Utreran plains, high up on the cool 
plateau of Central Mexico. 

For several years most generous offers had been 
made El Tigre to bring his cuadrilla to Mexico, but, 
surfeited with fame and rolling in riches, he had de- 
clined them. At last, however, in 188—, an offer was 
made him which he felt forced to accept — six thou- 
sand dollars a performance for ten corridas^ to be 
given on successive Sunday's in the Plaza Bucareli in 
the City of Mexico, all expenses of himself and his 
cuadrilla to be paid by the management. And so, 
late in April of that year El Tigre arrived in Mexico 
with his cuadrilla and (as stipulated in his contract) 
sixty great Utreran bulls, for the bulls of Utrera are 
famed in toreador history and song as the fiercest, 
most desperate fighters espada ever confronted. 

At the first performance El Tigre took the Mexican 
public by storm. No such execution, daring, and 
grace had ever been seen in either Bucareli or Colon. 
El Tigre was the toast in every club and cafe of the 
city. Every shop window displayed his portrait. 
All the journals sung his praises. Maids and ma- 
trons sighed for him. Youth and age envied him. 
El Tigress coffers were well-nigh bursting and his 
cups of joy overflowing, all but the one none but Sofia 
could fill. 

Where she was at the time El Tigre had no idea. 
And yet, wholly unsuspected by him, not only were 
[285] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

she and the Duke in Mexico, but both had attended 
all his performances at Bucareli, up to the last, incon- 
spicuous behind parties of friends they entertained 
in their box. 

Whether it was the Duke caught the pallor of 
Sofia's face in moments of peril for Mauro, or the 
light of pride and admiration in her eyes during his 
moments of triumph, sure it is the smouldering fires 
of the Duke's jealousy were rekindled, and he was 
prompted to plan a test of her bearing, when free of 
the restraint of his presence. On the morning of the 
last performance he announced that he must spend the 
afternoon with his attorneys, and must leave Sofia 
free to make her own arrangements for attendance 
at the last corrida. 

And glad enough was she of the chance. The 
boxes were far too high above, and distant from, the 
arena. For days she had coveted any of the seats 
along the lower rows of open benches, close down to 
the six-foot barrier between the ring and the audi- 
torium, close down where she could catch every shift- 
ing expression of Mauro's mobile face, and — where 
he could scarcely fail to see and recognize her. The 
thought of seeking in any way to meet or speak to 
him never entered her clean mind, but she had been 
more nearly a saint than a woman if she had been 
able to deny herself such an opportunity to convey to 
him, in one long burning glance, a knowledge of the 
[286] 



EL TIGRE 

endurance of the love her frightened " Mauro mio " 
had plainly confessed the night of their parting be- 
neath the fig tree. So it naturally followed that the 
Duke was barely out of the house before Sofia rushed 
away a messenger to reserve a section of the lower 
benches immediately beneath the box of the Presidente, 
directly in front of which Mauro must come, at the 
head of his cuadrilla, to salute the Presidente. 

The city was thronged with visitors come to see El 
Tigre. Hotels and clubs were overflowing with them. 
And thousands of poor peons had for months stinted 
themselves, often even gone hungry, to save enough 
tlacos to buy admission to the spectacle, to them the 
greatest and most magnificent it could ever be their 
good fortune to witness. The day was perfect, as 
indeed are most June days in Mexico. For two hours 
before the performance the principal thoroughfares 
leading to the Plaza Bucareli were packed solid with 
a moving throng, all dressed en fete. 

In no country in the world may one see such great 
picturesqueness, variety, and brilliancy of color in 
the costumes of the masses as then still prevailed in 
Mexico. Largely of more or less pure Indian blood, 
come of a rade Cortez found habited in feather tunics 
and head-dresses brilliant as the plumage of parrots, 
great lovers of flowers, three and a half centuries of 
contact with civilization had not served to deprive 
them of any of their fondness for bright colors. 
[287] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Thus with the horsemen in the graceful traje de chorro 
— sombreros and tight fitting soft leather jackets and 
trousers loaded with gold or silver ornaments, the 
footmen swaggering in scrapes of every color of the 
rainbow, the women wrapped in more delicately tinted 
rehosas and crowned with flowers, the winding streets 
looked like strips of flower garden ambulant. 

Bucareli seated twenty thousand, and when all 
standing-room had been filled and the gates closed, 
thousands of late comers were shut out. 

The level, sanded ring, the theatre of action, was 
surrounded by a six-foot solid-planked barrier. Be- 
hind and above the barrier rose the benches of the 
auditorium, the "bleachers" of the populace; they 
rose to a height of perhaps forty or fifty feet, while 
above the uppermost line of benches were the private 
boxes of the elite. Within the ring were five heavily 
planked nooks of refuge, set close to the barrier, be- 
hind which a hard pressed toreador might find safety 
from a charging bull. These refuges were little used, 
however, except by the underlings, the capadores, or 
by capsized picador es; espadas and handerilleros 
disdained them. On the west of the ring was the 
box of the Presidente of the corrida (in this instance, 
the Governor of the Federal District) ; on the east the 
main gate of the ring through which the cuadrilla 
entered ; on the north the gate of the bull pen. 

At a bugle call from the Presidente^ s box, the main 
[ 288 ] 



EL TIGRE 

gate swung wide and the cuadrilla entered, a band of 
lithe, slender, clean-shaven men, in slippers, white 
stockings, knee breeches, and jackets of silk orna- 
mented with silver, each wearing the little queue and 
black rosette attached thereto that from time im- 
memorial Andalusian toreadores have sported. 

El Tigre headed the squad, followed by two junior 
matadores, three bandcrUleros, three capadores, and 
two mounted picadores, while at the rear of the 
column came two teams of little, half-wild, prancing, 
dancing Spanish mules, one team black, the other 
white, each composed of three mules harnessed abreast 
as for a chariot race but dragging behind them noth- 
ing but a heavy double tree, to which the dead of the 
day's fight might be attached and dragged out of the 
arena. 

Each of the footmen was wrapped in a large black 
cloak passed over the left shoulder and beneath the 
right, the loose end of the cloak draped gracefully 
over the left shoulder, the right arm swinging free. 
The picadores were mounted (as usual) on old 
crowbaits of horses, mere bags of skin and bones, so 
poor and thin that neither could even raise a trot ; a 
broad leather blindfold fastened to their head-stalls. 
Each rider was seated In a saddle high of cantle and 
ancient of form as those Knights Templar jousted in. 
The breast of each horse was guarded by a great side 
of sole leather falling nearly to the knees, while the 
[289] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

right leg of each rider was incased in such a stiff and 
heavy leather leg-guard as to render hira afoot 
almost helpless ; and he was further guarded by still 
another side of sole leather swung from the saddle horn 
and covering his left leg and much of his horse's 
barrel. On the right stirrup of each picador rested 
the butt of his lance, a stout eight-foot shaft tipped 
with a sharp steel prod, barely long enough to catch 
and hold in the bull's hide. 

As the cuadrilla entered, a regimental band played 
El Hymno Nacional, the National Anthem, while the 
vast audience roared and shrieked a welcome to the 
gladiators. 

Marching to the time of the music in long tragic 
strides, heads proudly erect, right arms swinging and 
shoulders slightly swaying in the challenging swag- 
ger which toreadores affect, the cuadrilla crossed the 
arena and halted, close to the barrier, in front of the 
Presidente's box, bared their heads, gracefully sa- 
luted the Fresidente, and received the key to the bull 
pen and his permission to begin the fight. And as El 
Tigress eyes fell from the salute to the Fresidente they 
rested upon Sofia, doubtless from some subtle tele- 
pathic message, for it was a veritable hill of faces he 
confronted. There she sat on the second bench-row 
above the top of the barrier, matured and fuller of 
figure but radiant as at their Utreran parting ; there 
she sat, her gloved hands tightly clenched, her lips 
[ 290 ] 



EL TIGRE 

trembling, her great blue eyes pouring into his mes- 
sages of a love so deep and pure that it needed all his 
self-command to keep from leaping the barrier and 
falling at her feet. 

For a moment he stood transfixed, staggered, 
almost overcome with surprise and delight again to 
see her, thrilled with the joy of her message, blazing 
with revolt at the painful consciousness that she was 
and must remain another's. His emotions well-nigh 
stopped the beating of his heart. And so he stood 
gazing into Sofia's eyes until, self-possession recov- 
ered, he gravely bowed, turned, and waved his men 
to their posts. 

Instantly all was action, swift action. Cloaks were 
tossed to attendants, each footman received a red 
cape, the two picadores took position one on either 
side of the bull pen gate, the band struck up a tune, 
the gate was opened and a great Utreran bull bounded 
into the arena, maddened with the pain of a short 
handerilla, with long streaming ribbons, stuck in his 
neck, as he entered, by an attendant perched above 
the gate. 

His equal had never been seen in a Mexican bull 
ring. While typical of his Utreran brothers, all 
princes of bovine fighting stock, this coal-black 
monster was by the spectators voted their King. 
Relatively light of quarters and shallow of flank and 
barrel, he was unusually high and humped of withers, 
[291] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

broad and deep of chest and heavy of shoulders — 
indeed a well-nigh perfect four-legged type of a finely 
trained two-legged athlete, with a pair of peculiarly 
straight-upstanding horns that were long and almost 
as sharp as rapiers. Evidently by his build, he was 
of a strong strain of East Indian Brahminic blood. 
For his great weight, his activity was phenomenal — 
his leaps like a panther's, his turns as quick. 

Dazed for an instant by the crash of the music and 
the brilliant banks of color about him, he stood angrily 
lashing his tail and pawing up the sand in clouds — 
" digging a grave," as Texas cowboys used to call it 
— his eyes blazing and head tossing, but only for a 
moment. Then he charged the nearest picador, lit- 
erally leaped so high at him that head and cruel horns 
crossed above the horse's neck, his own great chest 
striking the horse just behind the shoulder with such 
force that man and mount hit the ground stunned and 
helpless. 

Barely were they down when he was upon them and, 
with a single twitch of his mighty neck, had ripped 
open the horse's barrel and half amputated one of the 
rider's legs. Then, diverted by the capadores, he 
whirled upon the second picador and in another ten 
seconds had left his horse dead and the rider badly 
trampled. Next the handerilleros tackled him, but 
such was his speed and ferocity that all three funked 

[ 292 ] 



EL TIGRE 

the work, and not one of them fastened his flag in the 
black shoulders. 

When the bull had entered the ring, El Tigre left 
the arena — a most unusual proceeding. Now he re- 
turned, clad in snow-white from head to foot, a white 
cap covering head and hair, his face heavily pow- 
dered. He slipped in behind and unseen by the bull 
to the centre of the arena, and there stood erect, with 
arms folded, motionless as a graven image. 

Presently the bull turned, saw El Tigre, and 
charged him straight. El Tigre was not even facing 
him, for the bull was approaching from his left. But 
there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the 
flicker of an eye lid, still as a figure of stone. 

A great sob arose from the audience, and all gave 
him up for lost, when, at the last instant before the 
bull must have struck, it turned and passed him. 
Once more the bull so charged and passed. Whether 
because it mistook him for the ghost of a man or rec- 
ognized in him a spirit mightier than its own, only the 
bull knew. 

Before the audience had well caught its breath. El 
Tigre, wearing again his usual costume, was striding 
again to the middle of the arena, carrying a light 
chair, in which presently he seated himself, facing the 
bull, a short banderillo, no more than six inches long, 
held in his teeth. And so he awaited the charge until 



THE RED-BLOODED 

the bull was within actual arm's-reach, when with a 
swift rise from the chair and a turn of his body quick 
as that of a fencer's supple wrist, he bent and stuck 
the teeth-held banderilla in the bull's shoulder as he 
swept past. 

Now was the time for the kill. 

El Tigre received his sword, muleta, and cape. 
The muleta is a straight two-foot stick over which the 
cape is draped, and, held in the matador's left hand, 
usually is extended well to the right of his body. 
Thus in an ordinary fight the bull is actually charg- 
ing the blood-red cape, and not the matador. But, 
with Sofia an onlooker, determined to make this the 
fight of his life. El Tigre tossed aside the muleta, 
wrapped the crimson cape about his body, and stood 
alone awaiting the bull's charge, his malleable sword- 
blade bent slightly downward, sufficiently to give a 
true thrust behind the shoulder, a down-curve into 
heart or lungs. 

With a bull of such extraordinary activity the act 
was almost suicidal, but El Tigre smilingly took the 
chance. By toreador etiquette the matador must re- 
ceive and dodge the first two charges : not until the 
third may he strike. On the first charge El Tigre 
stood like a rock until the bull had almost reached 
him, and then lightly leaped diagonally across his 
lowered neck. The second charge, come an instant 

[ 294 J 



EL TIGRE 

after the first, before most men could even turn, he 
dodged. The third he swiftly side-stepped, thrust 
true, and dropped the great Utreran midway of a leap 
aimed at his elusive enemy. 

It was a deed magnificent, epic, and the plaza rung 
with plaudits while hats, fans, and even purses and 
jewels showered into the arena — all of which, by 
toreador etiquette, were tossed back across the barrier 
to their owners. 

Then the teams entered and quickly dragged the 
dead from the arena ; the ugly, dangerously slippery 
red patches were fresh sanded, and the second bull 
was admitted. Thus, with more or less like incident, 
three more bulls were fought and killed. 

The fifth and last, however, proved a disgrace to 
his race. Bluff he did, but fight he would not; the 
noise and crowd unnerved him. At last, frenzied with 
fear and seeking escape, he made a mighty leap to 
mount the barrier directly in front of the box of the 
Presidente. And mount it he did, and down it 
crashed beneath his weight, leaving the bull for a 
moment half down and tangled in the wreckage, 
struggling to regain his feet. 

Directly in front of the bull, not six feet beyond 
the sharp points of his deadly horns, sat Sofia. In- 
deed none about her had risen ; all sat as if frozen in 
their places. And just as well they might have been, 

[295] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

for escape into or through the dense mass of specta- 
tors about them was utterly impossible. Whatever 
horror came they must await, helpless. 

But at the bull's very start for the barrier, El Tigre 
realized Sofia's peril and instantly sprang empty- 
handed in pursuit; for it was early in this the last 
corrida and he did not have his sword. 

Leaping the wreckage. El Tigre landed directly in 
front of the bull, happily at the instant it regained 
its feet, where, with his right hand seizing the bull by 
the nose — his thumb and two fore-fingers thrust well 
within its nostrils — and with his left hand grabbing 
the right horn, with a mighty heave he uplifted 
the bull's muzzle and bore down upon its horn until 
he threw it with a crash upon its side that left it mo- 
mentarily helpless. 

But, himself slipping in the loose wreckage, down 
also El Tigre fell, the bull's sharp right horn impaling 
his left thigh and pinning him to the ground. 

Before the bull could rise, the men of the cuadrilla 
had it safely bound and El Tigre released. El Tigre, 
however, did not know it. With the shock and pain 
of his wound he had fainted. 

When at length he regained consciousness, it was 
to find his head pillowed in Sofia's lap, her soft fingers 
caressing his brow, her tearful eyes looking into his, 
and to hear her whisper: " Mauro mio! " 

[ 296 ] 



EL TIGRE 

Just at this moment the Duke dc Oviedo ap- 
proached, no one knew whence. 

White with jealousy but steady and cool, he quietly 
remarked : 

"Madame, I ought to kill you both, but that my 
rank precludes. Lucha-sangre, in yourself, as son of 
a notary and hired toreador and purveyor of specta- 
cles, you are unworthy of my sword; nevertheless 
blood once noble is in your veins. And so as noble it 
suits me now to count you. As soon as you are re- 
covered of your wound I will send you my second." 

'' Most happy, Duke," answered Mauro ; " mine 
shall be ready to v „2t him." 

One evening a week later, while the Duke de Oviedo 
and two Mexican army officers were having drinks 
at the bar of the Cafe Concordia, General Delmonte, 
a Cuban long resident in New York and a distin- 
guished veteran of three wars, entered with two 
American friends. Delmonte was describing to his 
friends El Tigre's last fight, lauding his prowess, ex- 
tolling his noble presence and high character. Infu- 
riated by the ardent praise of his enemy, the Duke 
grossly insulted General Delmonte — and was very 
promptly slapped in the face. 

They fought at daylight the next morning, be- 
neath an arch of the ancient aqueduct, just outside 

[297] 



THE RED-BLOODED 
the city. Encountering in Delmonte one of the best 
swordsmen of his time, early in the combat the Duke 
received a mortal thrust. And as he there lay gasp- 
ing out his life, he murmured a phrase that, at the 
moment, greatly puzzled his seconds : 
" Gana El Tigre." (The Tiger Wins !) 



[298] 



CHAPTER Xin 

BUNKEEED 

IT seems it must have been somewhere about the 
year 4,000 B. C. that we lost sight of the tall 
peaks of the architectural topography of Man- 
hattan Island, and yet the log of the Black Prince 
makes it no more than twenty days. Not that our 
day-to-day time has been dragging, for it has done 
nothing of the sort. 

All my life long I have dreamed of indulging in 
the joy of a really long voyage, and now at last I've 
got it. New York to Cape Town, South Africa, 
6,900 miles, thirty days' straight-away run, and 
thence another twenty-four days' sail to Mombasa, 
on a 7,000-ton cargo boat, deliberate and stately 
rather than fast of pace, but otherwise as trim, well 
groomed, and well found as a liner, with an official 
mess that numbers as fine a set of fellows as ever trod 
a bridge. The Captain, when not busy hunting up 
a stray planet to check his latitude, puts in his spare 
time hunting kindly things to do for his two passen- 
gers — for there are only two of us, the Doctor and 
myself. The Doctor signed on the ship's articles as 
surgeon, I as purser. 

[299] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Fancy it! Thirty days' clear respite from the 
daily papers, the telephone, the subway crowds, and 
the constant wear and tear on one's muscular system 
reaching for change, large and small! Thirty days 
free of the daily struggle either for place on the lad- 
der of ambition or for the privilege to stay on earth 
and stand about and watch the others mount, that 
saps metropolitan nerves and squeezes the humanities 
out of metropolitan life until its hearts are arid and 
barren and cruel as those of the cave-men ! Thirty 
days' repose, practically alone amid one of nature's 
greatest solitudes, awed by her silences, uplifted by 
the majesty of her mighty forces, with naught to do 
but humble oneself before the consciousness of his 
own littleness and unfitness, and study how to right 
the wrongs he has done. 

Indeed a voyage like this makes it certain one will 
come actually to know one's own self so intimately 
that, unless well convinced that he will esteem and 
enjoy the acquaintance, he had best stay at home. 
Of my personal experience in this particular I beg to 
be excused from writing. 

Lonesome out here.'' Far from it. Behind, to be 
sure, are those so near and dear, one would gladly 
give all the remaining years allotted him for one 
blessed half-hour with them. Otherwise, time liter- 
ally flies aboard the Black Frince; the days slip by at 

[ 300 ] 



BUNKERED 

puzzling speed. Roughly speaking, I should say the 
meals consume about half one's waking hours, for we 
are fed five times a day, and fed so well one cannot 
get his own consent to dodge any of them. 

Indeed I've only one complaint to make of this ship : 
she is a " water-wagon " in a double sense, which 
makes it awkward for a man who never could drink 
comfortably alone. With every man of the mess a 
teetotaler, one is now and then possessed with a con- 
suming desire for communion with some dear soul of 
thirsty memory who can be trusted to take his 
" straight." Of course I don't mean to imply that 
this mess cannot be trusted, for you can rely on it 
implicity every time — to take tea ; you can trust it 
with any mortal or material thing, except your pet 
brew of tea, if you have one, which, luckily, I have n't. 
Indeed, for the thirsty man Nature herself in these 
latitudes is discouraging, for the Big Dipper stays 
persistently upside down, dry ! — perhaps out of sym- 
pathy with the teetotal principles of this ship. And 
most of the way down here there has been such a high 
sea running that the only dry places I have noticed 
have been the upper bridge and my throat. The fact 
is, about everything aboard this ship is distressingly 
suggestive to a faithful knight of the tankard : he is 
surrounded with " ports " that won't flow and giant 
" funnels " that might easily carry spirits enough to 

[301] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

wet the whistles of an army division (but don't), until 
he is tempted in sheer desperation to take a pull at 
the " main brace." 

All of Avhich, assisted by the advent of a covey of 
flying fishes and a (Sunday) "school" of porpoises, 
is responsible for the following, which is adventured 
with profuse apologies to Mr. Kipling: 



ON THE ROAD TO MOMBASA 

Take me north of the Equator 
Where'er gleams the polar star, 
Where " The Dipper " ne'er is empty 
And Orion is not far. 
Where the eagle at them gazes 
And up toward them thrusts the pine — 
Anywhere strong men drink spirits 
On the right side of "the line." 

On the road to Mombas-a, 
Drawing nearer toward Cathay, 
Where the north star now is under, 
'Neath the Southern Cross's ray. 

Take me off this water wagon 
Where the Captain's ribbon 's blue, 
Where the Doctor, yclept Barthwaite, 
And each man- jack of the crew 
[302] 



BUNKERED 

Never get a drop of poteen, 
Never know the cheer of beer — 
Anywhere a thirsty man may 
Wet his whistle without fear. 

On the road to Mombas-a, 
With the Black Prince day by day 
Rolling her tall taffrail under, 
'Neath a sky o'ercast and gray. 

Take me back to good old Proctor's 
W^here a man may quench his thirst, 
Where a purser with a shilling 
Need n't feel he is accursed 
By an ironclad owners' ship rule 
That her officers should n't drink — 
Anywhere the ringing glasses 
Merrily clink ! clink ! 

On the road to Mombas-a, 
Where the only drink is " tay," 
Where a thirst that is a wonder 
Bums the throat from day to day. 

Take me somewhere close to Rector's 
Where a man can get a crab. 
Where the blondined waves are tossing 
And every eye-glance is a stab, 
[303] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Where there 's froufrou of the jupon 
And there 's popping of the cork — 
Anywhere the men and women 
Snap their fingers at the stork. 

On the road to Mombas-a, 
Where e'en mermaids never play, 
Where to come would be a blunder 
Hunting hot birds and Roger. 

But lonesome out here ? Never — with the sympa- 
thetic North Atlantic winds ever ready to roar you 
a grim dirge in your moments of melancholy contem- 
plation of the inverted Dipper, with the gentle trop- 
ical breezes softly singing through the rigging notes 
of soothing cadence, with the lethal ocean billows 
ever leaping up the sides of the ship, foaming with the 
joy of what they would do to you if they once got 
you in their embrace ! 

Lonesome? With the coming and the going of 
each day's sun gilding cloud-crests, silvering waves, 
setting you matchless scenes in color effect, some rav- 
ishing in their gorgeous splendor, some soft and ten- 
der of tone as the light in the eyes of the woman you 
worship, scenes beside which the most brilliant stage 
settings which metropolitans flock like sheep to see 
are pathetically paltry counterfeits. 

Lonesome.'' With a mighty, joyously bounding 
[304] 



BUNKERED 

charger like the Black Prince beneath your feet if 
not between your knees, gayly taking the tallest bil- 
lows in his stride, whose ever steady pulse-beat be- 
speaks a soundness of wind and limb you can trust 
to land you well at the finish ! 

Lonesome? Where privileged to descend into the 
very vitals of your charger and sit throughout the mid- 
night watch, an awed listener to the throbs of the 
mighty heart that vitalizes his every function, while 
each vigorously thrusting piston, each smug, palm- 
rubbing eccentric, each somnolently nodding lever, 
drives deeper into your lay brain an overwhelming 
sense of pride in such of your kind as have had the 
genius to conceive, and such others as have had the 
skill and patience to perfect, the conversion of inert 
masses of crude metal into the magnificently power- 
ful and obviously sentient entity that is bearing you ! 

Lonesome? Skirting the coastline of Africa, a 
country whose potentates, from the Ptolemies to Tom 
Ryan, have never failed to make world history worth 
thinking about! 

Lonesome? Bearing up toward that sea-made 
manacle of fallen majesty, St. Helena, absorbed in 
memories of Bonaparte's magnificent dreams of 
world-wide dominion, and of his pathetic end on one 
of its smallest and most isolated patches ! 

Lonesome? With a chum at your elbow so close 
a student of the manly game of war that he can glibly 
[305] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

reel off for you every important manceuvre of all the 
great battles of history, from those of Alexander the 
Great down to Tommy Bums's latest! 

And now and then the elements themselves sit in 
and take a hand in our game, sometimes a hand we 
could very well do without — as twice lately. 

The first instance happened early last week. Tues- 
day tropical weather hit us and drove us into pa- 
jamas — a cloudless sky, blazing sun, high humidity, 
while we ploughed our way across long, slow-rolling, 
unrippled swells that looked so much like a vast, 
gently heaving sea of petroleum that, had John D. 
Standardoil been with us he would have suffered a 
probably fatal attack of heart disease if prevented 
from stopping right there and planning a pipe line. 

Throughout the day close about the ship clouds 
of flying fish skimmed the sea, and great schools of 
porpoises leaped from it and raced us, as if, even to 
them, their native element had become hateful, or as if 
they sensed something ominous and fearsome abroad 
from which they sought shelter in our company. 
One slender little opal-hued diaphanous-winged bird- 
fish came aboard, and before he was picked up had 
the happy life grilled out of him on our scorching iron 
deck, hot almost as boiler plates. Poor little chap ! 
he found with us anything but sanctuary; but per- 
haps he lived long enough to signal the fact to his 
mates, for no others boarded us. And yet for one 
[306] 



BUNKERED 

other opal-hued winged wanderer we have been sanc- 
tuary ; for when we were about one hundred and fifty 
miles out of New York a highly bred carrier pigeon, 
bearing on his leg a metal tag marked " 32," hovered 
about us for a time, finally alighted on our rail, and 
then fluttered to the deck when offered a pan of water 
— and drank and drank until it seemed best to stop 
him. By kindness and ingenuity of Chief Engineer 
Tucker he now occupies a tin house with a wonderful 
mansard roof, from which he issues every afternoon 
for an aerial constitutional, giving us a fright occa- 
sionally with a flight over far a-sea, but always re- 
turning safely enough to his new diggings. 

That Tuesday morning the sun rose fiery red out 
of the steaming Guinea jungles to the east of us, 
across its lower half two narrow black bars sinister. 
It looked as if it had blood in its eye, while the still, 
heavy, brooding air felt to be ominous of evil, har- 
boring devilment of some sort. All the mess were 
cross-grained, silent, or irritable, raw-edged for the 
first time, for a better lot of fellows one could not ask 
to ship with. Nor throughout the day did weather 
conditions or tempers improve. All day long the sky 
was heavily overcast with dense, low-hanging, dark 
gray clouds, which, while wholly obscuring the sun, 
seemed to focus its rays upon us like a vast burning- 
glass ; wherefore it was expedient for the two pajama- 
clad passengers to keep well within the shelter of the 
[ 307 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

bridge-deck awning. Toward sunset, a dense black 
wall of cloud settled upon the western horizon, aft 
of us. But suddenly, just at the moment the sun 
must have been descending below the horizon to the 
south of it, the black wall of cloud slowly parted, and 
the opening so made widened until it became an enor- 
mous oval, reaching from horizon half way to zenith, 
framing a scene of astounding beauty and grandeur. 
Range after range of cloud crests that looked like 
mountain folds rose one above another, with the 
appearance of vast intervening space between, some 
of the ranges a most delicate blue or pink, some 
opalescent, some gloriously gilded, while behind 
the farthest and tallest range, at what seemed an 
inconceivably remote distance, but in a perspective 
entirely harmonious with the foreground, appeared 
the sky itself, a soft luminous straw-yellow in color, 
flecked thickly over with tiny snow-white cloudlets. 
It was like a glimpse into another and more beautiful 
world than ours — the actual celestial world. 

But, whether or not ominous of our future, we were 
permitted no more than a brief glimpse of it, for pres- 
ently the pall of black cloud fell like a vast drop 
curtain and shut it from our sight. Then night came 
down upon us, black, starless, forbidding, although 
in the absence of any fall of the barometer nothing 
more than a downpour of rain was expected. 

But shortly after I had gone to sleep, at two o'clock, 
[ 308 ] 



BUNKERED 

suddenly something in the nature of a tropical 
tornado flew up and struck us hard. I was awak- 
ened by a tremendous crash on the bridge-deck above 
my cabin, a heeling over of the ship that nearly 
dumped me out of my berth, and what seemed like a 
solid spout of water pouring in through my open 
weather porthole, with the wind howling a devil's 
death-song through the rigging and an uninterrupted 
smash — bang ! above my head. 

Throwing on a rain coat over my pajamas, I went 
outside and up the ladder leading to the bridge-deck ; 
and as head and shoulders rose above the deck level, 
a wall of hot, wind-born rain struck me — rain so hot 
it felt almost scalding — that almost swept me off the 
ladder. If It had I should probably have become 
food for the fishes. I got to the upper deck just In 
time to see Captain Thomas get a crack on the head 
from a fragment of flying spar of the wreckage from 
the upper bridge — luckily a glancing blow that did 
no more damage than leave him groggy for a mo- 
ment. 

For the next fifteen minutes I was busy hugging a 
bridge stanchion, dodging flying wreckage and try- 
ing to breathe; for, driven by the violence of the 
wind, the rain came horizontally in such suffocatingly 
hot dense masses as nearly to stifle one. 

It was the watch of Second Mate Isltt. Afterwards 
he told me that a few minutes before the storm broke 
[309] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

he saw a particularly dense black cloud coming up 
upon us out of the southeast, where it had appar- 
ently been lying in ambush for us behind the north- 
ernmost headland of the Gulf of Guinea, an ambush 
so successful that even the barometer failed to detect 
it, for when Mate Isitt ran to the chart-room he found 
that the instrument showed no fall. But scarcely was 
he back on the bridge before the approaching cloud 
flashed into a solid mass of sheet lightning that cov- 
ered the ship like a fiery canopy ; and instantly there- 
after, a wall of wind and rain hit the ship, heeled her 
over to the rail, swung her head at right angles to 
her course, ripped the heavy canvas awning of the 
upper bridge to tatters, bent and tore loose from 
their sockets the thick iron stanchions supporting it, 
made kindling wood of its heavy spars, and strewed 
the bridge and forward deck with a pounding tangle 
of wreckage. How the mate and helmsman, who 
were directly beneath it, escaped injury, is a mystery. 
In twenty minutes the riot of wind and water had 
swept past us out to sea in search of easier game, 
leaving behind it a dead calm above but mountain- 
ous seas beneath, that played ball with us the rest of 
the night. Heaven help any wind-jammer it may 
have struck, for if caught as completely unwarned 
as were we, with all sails set, she and all her crew are 
likely to be still slowly settling through the dense 
darksome depths of the twenty-five hundred fathoms 
[310] 



BUNKERED 

the chart showed thereabouts, and weeping wives and 
anxious underwriters will long be scanning the news 
columns that report all sea goings and comings — 
except arrivals in the port of sunken ships. 

The second fall the elements have essayed to take 
out of us remains yet undecided. The fact is, I am 
now writing over a young volcano we are all hoping 
will not grow much older. 

Two nights ago I was awakened half suffocated, 
to find my cabin full of strong sulphurous fumes ; but 
fancying them brought in through my open portholes 
from the smoke-stack by a shift aft of the wind, I 
paid no further attention to them. But when the 
next morning I as usual turned out on deck to see 
the sun rise, a commotion aft of me attracted my at- 
tention. Looking, I saw the first mate, chief en- 
gineer, and a party of sailors, all so begrimed with 
sweat and coal dust one could scarcely pick officers 
from seamen, rapidly ripping off the cover of one of 
the midship hatches, while others were flying about 
connecting up the deck fire hose. This did n't look 
a bit good to me, and when, an instant later, off came 
the hatch and out poured thick volumes of smoke, I 
failed to observe that it looked any better. 

When the hatch was removed, the men thrust the 
hose through it, and began deluging the burning 
bunker with water; for, luckily, it is only a bunker 
fire, — in a lower and comparatively small bunker. 
[311] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

The fire had been discovered early tlie day previ- 
ous, and for nearly twenty-four hours officers and 
seamen had been fighting it from below, without any 
mention to their two passengers of its existence, fight- 
ing by tireless shovelling to reach its seat. And now 
they were on deck, attacking it from above, only be- 
cause the heat and fumes below had become so over- 
powering they could no longer work there. But 
after an hour's ventilation through the hatch and a 
continuous downpour of water, the first mate again 
led his men below. 

And so, the usual watches being divided into two- 
hour relays, the fight has gone on wearily but persist- 
ently, until now, the evening of the fourth day, the 
men are wan and haggard from the killing heat and 
foul air. In the engine-room in these latitudes the 
thermometer ranges from rarely under 108 degrees 
up to 130, and one has to stay down there only an 
hour, as I often have, until he is streaming with sweat 
as if he were in the unholiest heat of a Turkish bath. 
And as the burning bunker immediately adjoins the 
other end of the boiler room, to the heat of its own 
smouldering mass is added that of the fire boxes, until 
the temperature is probably close to 140 degrees. 

While the fire is confined to the bunker where 'i 
started, we are in no particular danger; but if it 
reaches the bunker immediately above, it will have a 

[ 312 ] 



BUNKERED 

free run to the after hold, where several thousand 
packages of case oil are stored. In the open waist 
above the oil are a score or more big tanks of gaso- 
line, and, on the poop immediately aft of that, a 
quantity of dynamite and several thousand detonat- 
ing caps. Thus if the fire ever gets aft, things are 
apt to happen a trifle quicker than they can be 
dodged. 

To denizens of terra firma, the mere thought of 
being aboard a ship on fire in mid-sea — we are now 
five hundred miles from the little British island of 
Ascension and one thousand and eighty off the Congo 
(mainland) Coast — is nothing short of appalling. 
But here with us, in actual experience, it is taken by 
the officers of the ship as such a simple matter of 
course, in so far as they show or will admit, that we 
are even denied the privilege of a mild thrill of 
excitement. 

In the meantime there is nothing for the Doctor 
and myself to do but sit about and guess whether it 
is to be a boost from the explosives, a simple grill, a 
descent to Davy Jones, an adventure while athirst 
and hungering in an open boat on the tossing South 
Atlantic, a successful run of the ship to the nearest 
land — or victory over the fire. I wonder which it 
will be! 

If the worst comes to the worst, I intend to do for 

[313] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

these pages what no one these last three weeks has done 
for me — commit them to a bottle, if I can find one 
aboard this ship, which is by no means certain. In- 
deed it is so uncertain I think I had best start hunting 
one right now. 

After nearly a twenty-four hours' search I*ve got 
it — a craft to bear these sheets, wide of hatch, gen- 
erously broad and deep of hull, but destitute of aught 
of the stimulating aroma I had hoped might cheer 
them on their voyage — more than I have been 
cheered on mine. For the best I am able to procure 
for them is — a jam bottle ! 

While the Doctor and I are not novices at golf, 
this is one " bunker " we are making so little headway 
getting out of, that both now seem likely to quit 
" down " to it. 

I wonder when the little derelict, tiny and incon- 
spicuous as a Portuguese man-of-war, may be picked 
up ; I wonder when the sheets it bears may reach my 
publisher to whom it is consigned. Perhaps not for 
years — a score, two score ; perhaps not until he 
himself, whom a few weeks ago I left in the lusty vigor 
of early manhood, is gathered to his fathers ; perhaps 
not, therefore, until the writer has no publisher left 
and is himself no longer remembered. 

The burning bunker is now a glowing furnace, the 
men worked down to mere shadows. Plainly tho fire 
[314] 



BUNKERED 

is getting the best of them and, what is even more 
discouraging, there is little more fight left in them. 

First Mate Watson, who, almost without rest, has 
led the fight below since it started, says that another 
half-hour will — 



[315] 



CHAPTER XIV 

THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

FEW mightier monarchs than Menelek II of 
Abyssinia ever swayed the destinies of a peo- 
ple. Throughout the vast territory of the 
Abyssinian highlands his individual will is law to 
some millions of subjects; law also to hordes of sav- 
age Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the 
confines of his kingdom. His court includes no coun- 
cillors. Alone throughout the long years of his reign 
Menelek has dealt with all domestic and foreign af- 
fairs of state. 

But now this last splendid survival of the feudal 
absolutism exercised and enjoyed by medieval rulers 
is about to disappear beneath encroaching waves of 
civilization, that do not long spare the picturesque. 
Cables from far-off Adis Ababa, Menelek's capital, 
bring news that he has formed a cabinet and pub- 
lished the appointment of Ministers of War, Finance, 
Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Commerce. And this 
change has come, not from the pressure of any party 
or faction within his kingdom, for such do not exist, 
but out of the fount of his own wisdom. So sound is 
this wisdom as to prove him a most worthy descendant 
[316] 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

of the sage Hebrew King whom Menelek claims as an- 
cestor — if, indeed, more proofs were necessary than 
the statesmanlike way in which he has dealt with jeal- 
ous diplomats, and the martial skill with which, at 
Adowa in 1896, he defeated the flower of the Italian 
army and won from Italy an honorable truce. 

No existing royal house owns lineage so ancient as 
that claimed by Menelek II, Negus Negusti, "King 
of the Kings of Ethiopa, and Conquering Lion of 
Judah." 

Old Abyssinian tradition has it that in the tenth 
century, B. C, early in her reign, Makeda, Queen of 
Sheba, paid a ceremonial visit to the Court of King 
Solomon, coming with her entire court and a magnifi- 
cent retinue bearing royal gifts of frankincense and 
balm, gold and ivory and precious stones. Her gor- 
geous caravan was bright with the many-colored 
plumes and silks of litters, blazing with the golden 
ornaments of elephant and camel caparisons, glitter- 
ing with the glint of spears and bucklers. 

That the two greatest souls of their time, so met, 
should fuse and blend is little to be wondered at. 
She of Sheba bore Solomon a son and called him 
Menelek, so the legend runs. Later the boy was 
twitted by playmates for that he had no father. In 
this annoyance the Queen sent an embassy to Solo- 
mon asking some act that should establish their son's 
royal paternity. Promptly Solomon returned the 
[317] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

embassy bearing to Sheba's court in far southwest 
Arabia a royal decree declaring Menelek his son, and 
accompanied it hj a son of each of the leaders of the 
twelve tribes of Israel, enjoined to serve as a sort of 
juvenile royal court to Menelek. 

Whether or not the claim of Menelek II be true, 
that he himself is lineally descended from the son of 
Solomon and Sheba's Queen, certain it is that in race 
type Abyssinians are plainly come of sons of Israel, 
crossed and modified with Coptic, Hamite, and Ethi- 
opian blood. To this day they cling closely as the 
most orthodox Hebrew, to some of the dearest Israel- 
itish tenets, notably abstention from pork and from 
meat not killed by bleeding, observance of the Sab- 
bath, and the rite of circumcision. Notwithstanding 
this the Abyssinians have been Christians since the 
fourth century of this era, when, only eight years 
after the great Constantine decreed the recognition 
of Christianity by the State, a proselyting monk 
came among them with a faith so strong, a heart so 
pure, and an eloquence so irresistible, that, single- 
handed, he accomplished the conversion of the Abys- 
sinian race. 

Throughout the centuries the Abyssinians have 
held fast to their faith as first it was taught them. 
The great wave of Mohammedanism that swept up 
the Nile and across the Indian Ocean broke and 
parted the moment it struck the Abyssinian plateau. 
[318] 




Menelek II, Negus Negusti, "King of llie Kings of I'Ahiopa, 
and Conquering Lion ot Judah" 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

It completely surrounded, but never could mount 
the tableland. 

Thus cut off for centuries from all other Christian 
Churches, the Abyssinian religion remains to-day but 
little changed. Could Paul or John return to earth, of 
all the Christian sects throughout the world, the 
forms and tenets of the Abyssinian Church would be 
the only ones they would find nearly all their own ; for 
the ritual is older than that of either Rome or Mos- 
cow. 

And remembering the Abyssinian folklore tale of 
the twelve sons of the chiefs of the twelve tribes of 
Israel sent by Solomon to Makeda as attendants on 
Menelek I, it is most curious and interesting to know 
that the heads of certain twelve Abyssinian families 
(none of whom are longer notables, some even the 
rudest ignorant herdsmen), and their forebears from 
time immemorial, have had and still possess inalienable 
right of audience with their monarch at any time they 
may ask it, even taking precedence over royalty it- 
self. Indeed Mr. George Clerk, for the last five years 
assistant to Sir John Harrington, British Minister 
to the Court of Menelek, recently told me that he and 
other diplomats accredited to Adis Ababa, were not 
infrequently subjected to the annoyance of having an 
audience interrupted or delayed by the unannounced 
coming for a hearing of one of these favored twelve. 

Many of Menelek's judgments are masterpieces. 
[319] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Recently two brothers came before him, the younger 
with the plaint that the elder sought the larger and 
better part of certain property they had to divide. 
Promptly Menelek ordered the elder to describe fully 
the entire property and state what part he wanted for 
himself. It was done. 

" And this," questioned Menelek, " you consider a 
just division of the property into two parts of equal 
value.?" 

" Yes, Negus," answered the elder. 

" Then," decreed Menelek, " give your brother first 
choice ! " 

Over wide territory beyond the Abyssinian border, 
Menelek's power is as much feared and his will as 
much respected as among his own subjects. Of this 
there occurred recently a most dramatic proof. 

Bordering Abyssinia on the east is the Danakil 
country. It adjoins the Province of Shoa, of which 
Menelek was Ras, or feudal King, before his acces- 
sion to the Abyssinian throne. The Danakils are a 
savage pagan people of mixed Hamite (early Egyp- 
tian) and Ethiopian ancestry. They are perhaps 
the most tirelessly warlike race in all Africa. Often 
severely beaten by their Italian and Somali neighbors, 
they have never been subdued. Indeed slaughter 
may, in a way, be said to be a part of their religion, 
for it is the fetich every young warrior must provide 
for the worship of the woman of his choice before he 
[ 320 ] 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

may hope to win and have her. It is necessary that 
he should have killed royal game — lion, rhinoceros, 
or elephant — but not enough. Singlehanded he must 
kill a man and bring the maid a trophy of the slaugh- 
ter before she will even consider him, and Danakil 
maids of spirit often demand some plurality of tro- 
phies. Thus the license for each Danakil mating is 
written in the life blood of some neighboring tribes- 
man ; thus are the few poltroons in Danakilland con- 
demned to stay celibate. 

Only Menelek's word do they heed ; his might they 
dread. 

Through the Danakil country, between Errer Gotto 
and Oder, not long ago travelled the caravan of Wil- 
liam Northrup McMillan, conveying the sections of 
several steel boats with which he purposed navigating 
and exploring the Blue Nile from its source to Khar- 
toom, a region that had never been traversed by white 
men. In the party was M. Dubois-Desaulle, a gay 
and reckless ex-officer of the French Foreign Legion 
who had long served in Algiers against raiding Arab 
sheiks. He harbored no fear of the unorganized wild 
tribesmen through whose country they were travel- 
ling. McMillan knew them better, however; he held 
his command under strict military discipline, marched 
in close order with scouts out, forbade straying from 
the column, and zareba-cd his night camps. For the 
march was a severe one and he had neither the time 
[321 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

nor sufficient force to search for or to succor missing 
stragglers. 

Urged with the rest never to go unarmed and to 
stay close with the caravan, Dubois-Desaulle's only 
reply was a laughing, "e/awflw/ Jamais. Jeneporte 
pas des armes pour ces babouins! Je les ferai s'enfuir 
avec des batons! N'inquietez pas de moi." 

Interested in botany and entomology, holding the 
natives in utter contempt, repeatedly he strayed from 
the column for hours without even so much as a pis- 
tol by way of arms, until finally McMillan told him 
that if he again so strayed he would be placed under 
guard for the balance of the march. But the very 
next day, riding a mule with the advance guard led 
by H. Morgan Brown, Dubois-Desaulle slipped un- 
observed into the bush, probably in pursuit of some 
winged wonder that had crossed his path. 

Camp was made early in the afternoon on the banks 
of the Doha River, and a strong party, with shikari 
trackers, led by Brown, was sent out in search of the 
straggler. Night came on before they could pick 
up his trail, and nothing further could be done except 
to build signal fires on adjacent hills; but all without 
result. Anxiety for his safety crystallized into chill 
fear for his life, when the dull glow of the signal fires 
was suddenly extinguished by the next morning's sun ; 
for the desert knows neither twilight nor dawn — the 

[322] 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

sun bursts up blood-red out of shrouding darkness 
like a rocket from its case, and at once it is day. 

An hour later Brown's shikaris found the place 
where Dubois-Desaulle had strayed from the column, 
followed his trail through the bush hither and thither 
for two miles, to a point where he had found a native 
warrior seated beneath a tree. They read, with 
their unerring skill at " sign " lore, that there he had 
stood and talked for some time with the native, and 
then pressed on, rider and footman travelling side by 
side, till, within the shelter of especially dense sur- 
rounding bush, the footman had dropped behind 
the rider — for what dastardly assassin's purpose the 
next twenty steps revealed. There stark lay the body 
of gay Dubois-Desaulle, dropped from his mule 
without a struggle by a mortal spear-thrust in his 
back, the manner of his mutilation a Danakil's sign 
manual ! 

Immediately messengers were sent to the caravan 
bearing the news and asking reinforcements. At this 
time the indomitable chief, McMillan, was laid up with 
veldt sores on the legs, unable to walk or even to ride 
except in a litter. Promptly, however, he despatched 
Lieutenant Fairfax and William Marlow, with about 
thirty more men, to Brown's support, with orders 
never to quit till he got the murderer. By a forced 
march, Fairfax reached Brown at four in the 
afternoon. 

[323] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

When journeying in desert places and amid deadly 
perils, it is always an unusually terrible shock to lose 
one from among so few, and to be forced to lay him 
in unconsecrated ground remote from home and 
friends. So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that 
stood by while a grave was dug to receive all that was 
mortal of their gallant comrade. And within it they 
laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssin- 
ian tope; stones were heaped above the grave — at 
least the four-footed beasts should not have a chance 
to rend him ! — and three volleys were fired as a last 
honor to Dubois-Desaulle, ex-legionary of the Army 
of Algiers. 

Tears dried, eyes hardened, jaws tightened, and 
away on the plain trail of the murderer marched the 
little column. Turning at the edge of the thick jun- 
gle for a last look back, the three noted an extraordi- 
nary circumstance that touched them deeply and 
made them feel that even the savage desert sympa- 
thized. A miniature whirlwind of the sort frequent 
in the desert was slowly circling the grave ; and even 
as they looked it swung immediately over it and there 
stood for some moments, its tall dust column rising 
up into the zenith like the smoke of a funeral pyre ! 
Then on they marched and there they left him, sure 
that by night lions would be roaring him a requiem 
not unfitting his wild spirit. 

Just at dusk the party reached a large Danakil 
[324] 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

town into which the murderer's trail led, and camped 
before it. 

Told that one of his men had killed their comrade 
and that they wanted him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was 
surly and insolent. He refused to give him up, said 
that he wished no war with them, but that if they 
wanted any of his people they must fight for them. 
Then guards were set about the camp and the little 
command lay down to sleep within a spear's throw of 
thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night 
passed without alarms, and then conference was re- 
sumed. Fairfax cajoled and threatened, threatened 
summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land 
off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief re- 
mained obdurate. 

Early in the day a courier was sent to McMillan 
with the story of their plight and a request for sup- 
plies and more men. These were instantly sent, leav- 
ing McMillan himself well nigh helpless, fuming at 
his own enforced inaction, alone with the Marlow, 
his personal attendant, a handful of men, and a total 
of only two rifles, as the sole guard of the caravan 
for ten more anxious days. 

Daily councils were held, always ending in mutual 
threats. Fairfax could make no progress, but he 
would not leave. 

One day Ali Gorah lined up two thousand warriors 
in battle array before Fairfax's small command and 
[325] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ordered him to move off, under pain of instant attack. 
But there Fairfax stubbornly stayed, in the very face 
of the certainty that his command could not last ten 
minutes if the chief should actually order a charge. 
His dauntless courage won, and the war party was 
withdrawn. 

In the meantime some of his Somalis had learned 
from the Danakils that the murderer's name was 
Mirach, and that he was the greatest warrior of the 
tribe, a man with trophies of all sorts of royal game 
and of no less than forty men to his matrimonial 
credit. By the eleventh day mutual irritation had 
nigh reached the fusing point. Fairfax had care- 
fully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine- 
gun that McMillan was bringing as a present to Ras 
Makonnen, the victor of the field of Adowa, and de- 
bated with his mates the question of risking an attack. 

Luckily, however, the previous day McMillan had 
bethought him of a letter of Menelek's he carried, a 
letter ordering all his subjects to lend the bearer any 
aid or succor he might need. This letter he sent by 
his Abyssinian headman to Mantoock, the nearest 
Abyssinian Ras and a sort of overlord of the Dana- 
kils, with request for his advice and aid. Promptly 
came Mantoock, with only one attendant, heard the 
story, begged McMillan to have no further care, and 
raced away for Ali Gorah's village, where happily 

[326] 




Disarmed and shackled, Miracli remained a sullen but 
defiant pris(mer*' 



THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED 

he arrived in mid afternoon of the eleventh day, just 
as Fairfax was making dispositions for opening a 
finish fight. 

Mantoock's first act was to advise Fairfax to with- 
draw his command and rejoin the caravan; and, 
assured that Mirach would be brought away a 
prisoner, Fairfax assented and withdrew. Then Man- 
toock entered alone the village of Ali Gorah and there 
spent the night. What passed that night between the 
Christian and the pagan chiefs we do not know. 
Probably little was said; nothing more was needed, 
indeed, than the interpretation of the letter of the 
Negus and the exhibition of the royal seal it bore. 
Full well Ali Gorah knew the heavy penalty of dis- 
obedience. 

So it happened that near noon of the twelfth day 
Mantoock brought Mirach into McMillan's camp, 
accompanied by thirty of his family and the headmen 
of the tribe, Mirach marching in fully armed with 
spears and shield, insolent and fearless. 

Asked why he had done the deed, Mirach replied: 

" I was resting in the shade. The Feringee ap- 
proached and asked me to guide him to the river. I 
told him to pass on and not to disturb me. Then he 
stayed and talked and talked till I got tired and told 
him not to tempt me further ; for I had never yet had 
such a chance to kill a white man. Still he annoyed 

[ 327 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

me with his foolish talk until, weary of it, I led him 
away into the thickets to his death and won trophies 
dear to Danakil's maidens." 

Three camels, worth twenty dollars each, or a total 
of sixty dollars, is usual blood-money in Abyssinia. 
When that is paid and received, feuds among the 
tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But 
Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his peo- 
ple that they offered McMillan no less than three hun- 
dred camels for his life. They were dumbfounded 
when their offer was refused. 

Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen 
but defiant prisoner with the caravan for the next two 
weeks' march, when the crossing of the Hawash River 
brought them well into Abyssinian territory and made 
it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small 
escort, to Adis Ababa. 

There he was tried beneath the sombre shade of the 
famous Judgment Tree, condemned, and two months 
later hanged in the market place : and there for days 
his grinning face and shrivelling carcass swung, a 
menacing proof to the wildest visiting tribesmen of 
them all of the vast power of the Negus Negusti. 



[328] 



CHAPTER XV 

DJAMA AOUT's heroism 

THROUGHOUT Somaliland, among a race 
famous for their fearlessness, the name of 
Djama Aout Is held a synonyme for reckless 
courage. He did the bravest deed I ever saw, a deed 
heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage in its execu- 
tion ; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no 
longer-range weapon than an assegai, trained from 
youth to fight and kill at arm's length or in hand 
grapple ; a deed that, incidentally, saved my life." 

The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well 
qualified by personal experience to sit in judgment, 
as Court of Last Resort, on any act of courage; a 
man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy 
wager that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and 
ride a mile, all in sixteen and a half minutes, finished 
the three miles in sixteen minutes and seven seconds ; 
a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet 
that he could swim the half-mile across the Thames 
and back in his evening clothes before the coflFee was 
served, and did it ; and who has crossed Africa from 
Khartoom to the Red Sea. 

If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past- 
[329] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

mastership in hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to 
mention that he voluntarily got himself in the fix that 
needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling the 
story he did not convey the impression that his own 
part in it was more than secondary and inconsequen- 
tial. 

"We were big-game-hunting, lion and rhino pre- 
ferred, along the border of Somaliland," he contin- 
ued. "Besides the pony and camel men, we had four 
Somali shikaris, trained trackers, who knew the hab- 
its of beasts and read their tracks and signs like a 
book ; men of a breed whose women will not give them- 
selves as wives except to men who have scored kills of 
both royal game and men. 

"Sahib McMillan's personal shikari was Djama 
Aout; mine, Abdi Dereh. At the time of this inci- 
dent the Sahib had several lions to his credit, while I 
yet had none. So the Sahib kindly declared that, 
however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the 
next lion should be mine. The section we were in was 
the usual * lion country ' of East Africa, wide 
stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low roll- 
ing hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the thorny 
mimosa, most of it low bush, some grown to small trees 
twenty or thirty feet in height. 

" To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day 
decided to divide the camp, and I moved off about 
four miles and pitched my tent on a low hill, which 
[330] 




Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for their 
fearlessness, the name of Djama Aout is hekl 
a synonyme for reckless courage" 



DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM 

left the old camp in clear view across the plain. 
Early the next morning I went out after eland and 
had an excellent morning's sport. Returned to camp 
shortly after noon tired and dusty, I took a bath, got 
into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and 
was sitting comfortably smoking within my tent, when 
one of my men hurried in to say a messenger was 
coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he ar- 
rived, with word from the Sahib that he had a big 
male lion at bay in a thicket bordering the river and 
urging me to hurry to him, 

"This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, 
mounted a pony, without stopping to dress, and, fol- 
lowed by Abdi Dereh and another shikari, dashed 
away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace. 
Arrived, I found the Sahib and about a dozen men, 
shikaris and pony men, surrounding a dense mimosa 
thicket no more than thirty or forty yards in diame- 
ter. Nigh two-thirds of its circumference was 
bounded by a bend of a deep stream the lion was not 
likely to try to cross, which left a comparatively 
narrow front to guard against a charge. 

" * Here you are, Don Carlos ! ' called the Sahib, 
as I jumped off my pony. 'Here 's your lion in the 
bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama Aout and 
the rest will stay to help you while I go back and 
move the caravan to a new camp-site. No sugges- 
tion to make, except I scarcely think I'd go in the 
[331] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of 
you,' and away he rode toward his camp. 

" The situation was simple, even to a novice at the 
game of lion-shooting. With my line of shouting 
men forced to range themselves across the narrow 
land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit on 
the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: 
it was either fire the bush and drive him out upon us 
or enter the bush on hands and knees and creep about 
till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh suicidal, 
for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and 
locate me before I could see him, and thus would be al- 
most complete master of the situation. Naturally, 
therefore, I first had the bush fired, as near to wind- 
ward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a 
stand covering his probable line of exit from the 
thicket. But it was a failure — not enough dead 
wood to carry the fire through the bush and it soon 
flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but 
the last alternative, and I took it. 

" Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep 
into the thicket. Soon my hands were bleeding from 
the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground, my back 
from the thorny boughs arching low above me. For 
some distance I could see no more than the length of 
my rifle before me or to right or left. Presently, 
when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi Dereh 
next behind me, a second shikari behind him, and 
[332] 



DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM 

Djama Aout bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse 
of the lion's hind quarters and tail, scarcely six feet 
ahead of me. 

"I fired at once, most imprudently, for the expo- 
sure could not possibly afford a fatal shot. Instantly 
after the shot, the lion circled the dense clump imme- 
diately in front of me and charged me through a nar- 
row opening. As he came, I gave him my second 
barrel from the hip — no time to aim — and in trying 
to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my loose 
slippers and fell flat on my back. 

"Later we learned that my first shot had torn 
through his loins and my second had struck between 
neck and shoulder and ranged the entire length of his 
body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450 
cordite-driven balls did not serve to stop him, and the 
very moment I hit the ground he lit diagonally across 
my body, his belly pressing mine, his hot breath burn- 
ing my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into mine. 

"Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter 
of seconds. Abdi Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the 
act of shoving the gun muzzle against the lion's ribs 
for a shot through the heart, when a shot from with- 
out the bush — we never learned by whom fired, proba- 
bly by one of the pony men — broke his arm and 
knocked him flat. Then the second shikari sprang 
forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke 
of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the 
[ 333 ] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

flesh from one side of his head and face and laid him 
senseless. 

" Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, 
the lion turned to the prey held helpless beneath him, 
and with a fierce roar, was in the very act of advanc- 
ing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize 
me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my 
succor. His only weapon was the Sahib^s .38 Smith 
& Wesson self-cocking six-shooter. His was the 
quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and 
desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in 
the face — he knew it at a glance. Just within those 
enormous jaws, and all would be over with me. The 
light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be 
little more than a flea-bite on a monster already 
ripped laterally and longitudinally through and 
through by two great .450 cordite shells. Indeed 
the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his 
great heart was beating strong and steady against 
mine. Of what avail a little pistol-ball, or six of 
them? 

"All this must have raced through Djama Aout's 
brain in a second, in the very second Shikari Number 
Two was falling under the lion's blow. In another 
second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one 
that possibly could have saved me. 

"Just at the instant the lion turned and opened 

[334] 




By F. T. Johnson 

"Within the lion's jaws and into his {jreat yawniii}? mouth 
Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and forearm"" 



DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM 

his jaws to seize and crush my head, forward sprang 
Djama Aout, within the lion's jaws and into his great 
yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and 
forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched 
cruelly through sinews and into bone, steadily pulled 
the trigger till the pistol's six loads were discharged 
down the lion's very throat ! 

" Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion 
released Djama Aout's mangled arm and freed me 
of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by the 
the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest 
mimosa near, a poor four feet from the ground, 
within easy reach of our enemy if he had not been too 
sick of his wounds to leap at me. 

Having fallen from the pain and shock of his 
wounded arm, Djama Aout rose, backed off a little 
distance, and stood at bay, the pistol clubbed in his 
left hand. 

" While apparently sick unto death, the lion might 
nmster strength for a last attack, so I called to Mar- 
low, who, under orders, had waited without the 
thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of 
whether or not the lion was even wounded, in the brave 
boy came, crept in range and fired a great eight-bore 
ball fair through the lion's heart. 

" It was only a few hours until, working with knife 
and tweezers, the Sahib had all the mimosa thorns dug 

[335] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

out of my back and legs, but it was many months 
before Dj?.n:a Aout recovered partial use of his good 
right arm, ai d it may very well be generations before 
the story of his heroic deed ceases to be sung in 
Somali villages." 



[ 338 J 



CHAPTER XVI 

A MODERN C(EUR-DE-LION 

TO seek to come to death grips with the King of 
Beasts, a man must himself be nothing short 
of lion-hearted. Such men there are, a few, 
men with an inborn lust of battle, a love of staking 
their own lives against the heaviest odds ; men who, 
lacking a Crusader's cult or a country's need to cut 
and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens of 
the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith 
in their own strong arms and steady nerves ; men who 
shrink from a laurel but treasure a trophy. William 
Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis, who has 
spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue 
Nile and in travel through Abyssinia and British East 
Africa, is such a man. 

A friend of Mr. McMillan has told me the follow- 
ing story of one of his hunting experiences. While I 
can only tell it in simple prose, the deed described 
deserves perpetuity in the stately metre of a saga. 

The Jig-Jigga country, a province of Abyssinia 
lying near the border of British Somaliland and gov- 
erned by Abdullah Dowa, an Arab sheik owing alle- 
giance to King Menelek, is the best lion country in all 
[337] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

Africa. Jig-Jigga is an arid plateau averaging 
5,000 feet above sea level, poorly watered but gener- 
ously grassed, sparsely timbered with the thorny mi- 
mosa (full brother to our own Texas mesquite), and 
swarming everywhere with innumerable varieties of 
the wild game on which the lion preys and fattens — 
eland, oryx, hartebeest, gazelle, and zebra. 

There are two ways of hunting lion. First, from 
the perfectly safe shelter of a zareba, a tightly en- 
closed hut built of thorny mimosa bows, with no open- 
ing but a narrow porthole for rifle fire. Within the 
zareba the hunter is shut in at nightfall by his shika- 
ris, usually having one shikari with him, sometimes 
with a goat as a third companion and a lure for lion. 
An occasional bite of the goat's ear by sharp shikari 
teeth inspires shrill bleats sure to bring any lion lurk- 
ing near in range of the hunter's rifle. At other 
times goat ears are spared, and the loudest-braying 
donkey of the caravan is picketed immediately in 
front of the zarebd's porthole, his normal vocal activ- 
ities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. 
Sometimes several weary sleepless nights are spent 
without result, but sooner or later, without the slight- 
est sound hinting his approach, suddenly a great yel- 
low body flashes out of the darkness and upon the 
cringing lure. For an instant there are the sinister 
sounds of savage snarls, rending flesh, cracking bones, 
and screams of pain and fear, and then a dull red flash 
[338] 



A MODERN CCEUR-DE-LION 

heralds the rifle's roar, and the tawny terror falls 
gasping his life out across his prey. 

The second, and the only sportsmanlike way of 
lion-hunting, is by tracking him in the open. The 
pony men circle till they find a trail, follow it till 
close enough to the game to race ahead and bring it 
to bay, circle about it while a messenger brings up 
the Sahib, who dismounts and advances afoot to a 
combat wherein the echo of a misplaced shot may 
sound his own death-knell. 

One morning while camped in the Jig-Jigga coun- 
try, William Marlow, our Sahib's valet, was out with 
the pony men trailing a wounded oryx, while the 
Sahib himself was three miles away shooting eland. 
In mid forenoon Marlow's men struck the fresh track 
of two great male lions, plainly out on a hunting 
party of their own. 

Instantly Marlow rushed a messenger away to 
fetch the Sahib, and he and the pony men then took 
the trail at a run. Within two hours the pony men 
succeeded in circling the quarry and stopping it in 
a mimosa thicket. Shortly thereafter, while they 
were circling and shouting about the thicket to pre- 
vent a charge before the Sahib^s arrival, an incident 
occurred which proves alike the utter fearlessness and 
the marvellous knowledge of the game of the Somali. 
Suddenly out of the shadows of the thicket sprang 
one of the lions and launched himself like a thunder- 
[339] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

bolt upon one of the pony men, bearing horse and 
rider to the ground. Losing his spear in the fall and 
held fast by one leg beneath his horse, the rider was 
defenceless. However, he seized a thorny stick and 
began beating the lion across the face, while the lion 
tore at the pony's flank and quarters. Then down 
from his horse sprang another pony man, and know- 
ing he could not kill the lion with his spear quickly 
enough to save his companion, approached and 
crouched directly in front of the lion till his own face 
was scarcely two feet from the lion's, and there made 
such frightful grimaces and let off such shrill shrieks, 
that, frightened from his prey, the lion slunk snarling 
to the edge of the thicket. 

Just at this moment the Sahib raced upon the 
scene, accompanied by his Secretary, H. Morgan 
Brown. In the run he had far outdistanced his gun- 
bearers. Marlow was unarmed and Brown carried 
nothing but a camera. Thus the Sahib's single-shot 
.577 rifle was the only effective weapon in the party, 
and for it he did not even have a single spare car- 
tridge. The one little cylinder of brass within the 
chamber of his rifle, with the few grains of powder 
and nickeled lead it held, was the only certain safe- 
guard of the group against death or mangling. 

All this must have flashed across the SahiVs mind 
as he leaped from his pony and took stand in the open, 
sixty steps from where the lion stood roaring and 
[340] 



A MODERN CCEUR-DE-LION 

savagely lashing his tail. A little back of the Sahib 
and to his left stood Brown with his camera, beside 
him Marlow. 

Instantly, firm planted on his feet, the Sahib threw 
the rifle to his face for a steady standing shot. But 
quicker even than this act, instinctively, the furious 
King of Beasts had marked the giant bulk of the Sahib 
as the one foeman of the half-score round him worthy 
of his gleaming ivory weapons, and at him straight 
he charged the very instant the gun was levelled, com- 
ing in great bounds that tossed clouds of dust behind 
him, coming with hoarse roars at every bound, roars 
to shake nerves not made of steel and still the beating 
of the stoutest heart. On came the lion, and there 
stood the Sahib — on and yet on — till it must have 
seemed to his companions that the Sahib was frozen 
in his tracks. 

But all the time a firm hand and a true eye held the 
bead of the rifle sight to close pursuit of the lion's 
every move, so held it till only a narrow sixteen yards 
separated man and beast. Then the Sahib^s rifle 
cracked ; and, with marvellous nerve. Brown snapped 
his camera a second later and caught the picture of 
the kill. Hitting the beast squarely in the forehead 
just at the take-ofi" of a bound, the heavy .577 bullet 
cleaned out the lion's brain pan and killed him in- 
stantly, his body turning in mid-air and hitting the 
ground inert. A better rifle-shot would be impossi- 
[341] 



THE RED-BLOODED 

ble, and as good a camera snapshot has certainly 
never been made in the very face of instant, impend- 
ing, deadly peril. 

A half-hour later Lion Number Two, slower of reso- 
lution than his mate, fell to the Sahib's first shot, with 
a broken neck, while lashing himself into fit fury for 
a charge. This was more even than a royal kill; 
each of the lions was, in size, a record among Jig- 
Jigga hunters, the first measuring eleven feet, one 
inch from tip of nose to tip of tail, the second eleven 
feet. 

And then the party marched back to camp with the 
trophies, Djama Aout, the head shikari, chanting 
pagans to his Sahib's prowess, while his mates roared a 
hoarse Somali chorus, and all night long, by ancient 
law of shikari, the camp feasted, chanted, and danced, 
one sable saga-maker after another chanting his pride 
to serve so valiant a Sahib. 

THE END 



[342] 

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